Hak and the Mockingjay
by Grimm48
Summary: Katniss isn't the only volunteer for the 74th Hunger Games. Hak a well-known 18-year-old teen from the 11th district volunteered when their district got the news that Katniss is taking part in the tournament. Pairing: Hak x Katniss
1. Chapter 1

Summary: Katniss isn't the only volunteer for the 74th Hunger Games. Hak a well-known 18-year-old teen from the 11th district volunteered when their district got the news that Katniss is taking part in the tournament.

Pairing: Hak x Katniss

Disclaimer: I don't own Akatsuki no Yona or Hunger Games

* * *

|4 years ago – forest between district 11 and 12|

"Hi there Catnip." Hak, a dark-haired boy having a braid with a feather and a golden pin hanging from his face greets the girl.

"Good to see you're still practicing like I showed you." Hak says, walking over to the girl, carrying the bird she just shot with an arrow.

"Hak, what are you doing here? Isn't your districts reaping any time now?" Katniss Everdeen, a brunette, carrying a bow and some arrows over her plain dress asks him.

"You're one to talk. Your districts reaping is before ours." Hak tells her.

"Oh, right." She replies, having forgotten that part.

"Anyways, it's good that I find you here. I wanted to give you something before the reaping takes place." He tells her.

"What is it?" She asks excited about receiving a gift.

"It's my lucky charm. So you won't ever have to fear the reaping." He tells her, removing the golden pin hanging from his hair.

"Are you sure? You have to enter the reaping too." She asks him uncertain while Hak pins the golden accessory picturing a Mockingjay onto her collar.

"I'll be fine." He tells her reassuringly.

"Anyways, I have to go now, you should hurry too. Good luck Catnip." He tells her before making his way back to his district with her shouting after him, "It's Katniss! How often do I have to tell you not to call me that!"

* * *

|2 years later|

Katniss, now 14 years old is running through the forest she often hunts in, carrying her bow and a quiver with arrows.

She stops quietly when she spots a deer drinking from a river and readys her arrow.

Moments before she releases the string the deer however gets spooked by something and runs away.

"What the hell? Couldn't you have been more careful?" Katniss yells angrily at a teen going towards the river from the other side.

"Sorry, I didn't see it." Hak replies, looking towards her while wearing a weird mask made out of an animal skull on his face. (AN: Shin Ah mask)

"What is up with that mask, Haloween hasn't been celebrated for 70 years." Katniss asks him, cautious of the masked teen.

"Don't pay it any mind. I only came to get some water, I'll be out of your hair in a moment." He tells her, glancing at her again while filling a flask with water, freezing once he sees a familiar pin around the girls neck.

"Say, what is your name?" He asks her, trying to sound casual while actually being nervous about it.

"It's Katniss." She tells him, making him drop his flask.

"Shoot." He curses and runs after the flask which is slowly being carried away by the current.

"Maybe I'll see you around." He yells before disappearing from her sight.

"Weird guy, now where is that deer?" Katniss says and starts tracking the animal.

* * *

|2 months later|

"Hey, nice to see you again." The masked Hak greets Katniss who is sitting on a fallen tree at the outer edge of the woods.

She simply continues to sit there and stares into the woods wordlessly.

"You OK there?" He asks growing concerned.

"Katniss. There you are." A boy says arriving behind the two of them.

"Gale." She says weakly, turning to the newcomer.

"Who are you?" Gale asks Hak, weirded out by his mask.

"He won't tell you." Katniss answers for the masked teen, closing the distance towards Gale and hugs him strongly, letting her tears fall freely.

"OK, something is going on, can somebody fill me in please?" Hak asks, shocked by her outburst of emotion.

"Have you heard about the mine collapse two weeks ago?" Gale asks him.

"No. I'm from district 11." Hak replies.

"Well both mine and her fathers were down there when it collapsed." Gale tells him, starting to tear up as well.

"I'm sorry, is there any way I can help you?" Hak asks.

"Just leave." Katniss tell him, lashing out at him.

"Allright." Hak says dejected and disappears into the woods, only showing himself to her on few occasions but constantly keeping his eye on her whenever she enters the woods.

* * *

|today|

It is the day of the 74th annual reaping and Katniss enters her sister room to calm her down after she wakes up with a nightmare about the Hunger Games worried that she will be drafted.

Katniss manages to calm her down by singing her a song. "You know Prim, I have something for you." Katniss tells her, taking off her necklace and hanging it around her sisters' neck.

"This will keep you safe. Trust me." She tells her. An hour later the two of them have to get ready for the reaping and wash themselves before putting on a blue dress their mother got for them.

|at the reaping -12th district|

"Now, the time has come for us to select one courageous man and woman for the honor of representing the district 12 in the hunger games." The announcer says ceremoniously.

"As usual, ladies first." She says and reaches into one of two huge glass bowls, selecting a piece of paper at random.

"Primrose Everdeen." She says, reading the name on the card.

Katniss's sister slowly makes her way to the stage until Katniss tries to get to her, shouting her name before finally calling out, "I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!"

"You need to get out of here, get out of here and go find mom!" Katniss tells her little sister, sending her away with the help of Gale, who carries her over to her mother.

"District 12th very first volunteer. What is your name?" The announcer asks Katniss after helping her on stage.

"Katniss Everdeen." She says quietly, her mind trying to catch up to what is happening.

"Well I bet my hat that was your sister, wasn't it?" The lady asks.

"Let's have a very first volunteer Katniss Everdeen." The lady says, clapping her hands with the kids raising their left hand into the air, displaying a three-finger salute.

"And now for the boys…" The woman says.

* * *

|11th district|

Hak has been watching the 12th district's results on a television and shuts it off at this point. He gets up, putting on his trademark Chinese battledress and puts his Glaive in the holster on his back, storing the mask in one of the big pockets he has in the jacket.

"It happened after all, at least we're 16 now." Hak says with a sigh, having watched the 12th districts Reaping every year after he got reaped on the 70th Hunger Games and won, having set the record as the youngest to ever win at 12 years old, and the record for having killed the most contesters as a single individual. This is how he came to his spectacular looking weapon, which is a black staffed glaive with a razor-sharp edge which he takes care of regularly and golden lightning bolts going across the blade part of the weapon on each side.

"Time to volunteer." He says decidedly and leaves his home to head to his districts Reaping which will happen in half an hour.

|30 minutes later|

The announcer for district 11 has just called Rue, a twelve year old dark skinned girl out as the female contester and says "Now for the boys…" going over to the other bowl to fetch a card but before she reaches it Hak already made his way to the stage, not having been stopped by the guards since he's a champion and they assumed that he's supposed to mentor the two new tributes.

"I volunteer!" Hak says arriving at the stage when the woman was about to grab a name.

"My my, look who we have here. District 11th very own record setting champion wants to enter the Hunger Games AGAIN!" The woman says shocked.

"Well here we have them our tributes from district 11. Rue and Hak the Thunderbeast!"

Meanwhile at district 12 Peeta Mellark has been called as the male tribute and both he and Katniss are being held in the districts security center, where they are allowed to receive a brief visit from family and friends. Katniss gets visited by her sister and mother and tells her mother to take care of Primrose and promises Primrose that she'll do her best to come back home. Primrose slips her the pin her sister gave her that morning telling her "You need it now."

After that Gale see her off and she tells him to take care of her family.

|20 minutes later on the train headed for the capitol|

"Have you met him? Haymitch?" Peeta asks Katniss while they are sitting on two chairs waiting for their mentor to arrive.

"Look Katniss he is our mentor, he did win this thing once." Peeta tells her, still only met by silence from the girl.

"If you don't want to talk I understand but there is nothing wrong with getting a little bit of help." Peeta tells her, making her look at him and remembers that when she was starving a year ago, lying on the street near his family's bakery how he threw some burned bread in a puddle for her, not wanting to step into the rain.

A drunken, blonde man then enters their wagon and starts looking for booze.

"Have you seen the ice?" He asks, getting headshakes no in response.

"OK, so when do we start?" Peeta asks Haymitch, who slumps down on a chair across from them.

"Wow, so eager, most aren't in such a hurry." Haymitch tells him.

"You are our mentor." Peeta says confused.

"Mentor? OK, let me give you some advice, embrace the probability of your imminent death and know in your heart that there is nothing I can do to help you." He tells them.

"So why are you here then?" Katniss asks him.

"For the booze of course." Haymitch answers, taking the bottle and leaving their wagon.

"He'll come around. I know he will." Peeta says going after Haymitch while Katniss leaves to her compartment to look at some footage from previous Hunger Games.

Hours later she sees a teen win by bashing another teen's skull in with a brick while the announcer talks about it passionately, she shuts off the TV and leaves to check in with the others now that it's morning.

She arrives at the food wagon and sees Haymitch, Peeta and their escort Effie having breakfast.

She joins them and gets the advice from Haymitch to be likeable, so they get sponsors.

* * *

After arriving at the capitol, the tributes all get washed and prepared for their districts' stylists to make help them make their impressions on the sponsors.

"That was one of the bravest things I've ever seen, with your sister. I'm Cinna." A latino man tells Katniss, walking into the room she had to wait in.

"Katniss." She replies shaking the man's hand.

"I'm sorry that this happened to you and I'm here to help you in any way that I can." He tells her.

"Most people just congratulate me." Katniss tells him surprised.

"I don't see the point in that. So tonight they have the tribute parade to show you off to the world." Cinna informs her.

"So you're here to make me look pretty." Katniss says.

"To help you make a impression. Usually they dress people in clothes from their district." Cinna says.

"Yeah well mine's coal miners." Katniss tells him.

"Yeah, you probably don't want to do that. You want to do something people will remember. Did they explain about how to get sponsors?" Cinna asks.

"Yeah but I'm not very good at making friends." Katniss tells him.

"We'll see. I just think that somebody that brave shouldn't be dressed up in some stupid costume." Cinna tells her before he gets both her and Peeta ready for the parade.

"It's not real fire, these suits are build so you won't feel a thing." Cinna tells the two, who are dressed in black cloathing with Catniss wearing her hair styled in braids which come together in a sort of halo behind her head.

"Ready? You won't feel a thing." Cinna asks them.

"I'm not afraid." She tells him.

Moments later the parade starts with a huge crowd filling the stadium as well as the event being shown on TV.

"There they are. This year's Tributes. Oh, and look how excited they are. It just gives you goose bumps." One of the two announcer says when the first chariots enter, drawn by two horses each with the styled tributes of the respective district standing on them.

"Yeah and the stylists are so clearly able to reflect each district." The other announcer agrees passionately.

"Right, right like district four." The other one says.

"Fishing I get it. And behind them we have two powerplant workers. And then… What is that?" Comes the reply.

"Interesting, both district 11 and 12 have a similar effect. The 11th district is wearing green to symbolize the farmers district, but they have lightning shooting off them and look the 70th Champion is showing off his prize, the Thunderbeast indeed." One announcer says enthusiastically.

"And behind them we have district 12 who are appearing to be on fire. Now this is a sight for sore eyes." The other one adds.

After the chariots stop in front of a huge podium president Snow takes the stage saying "Welcome. Welcome tributes we welcome you. We salute your courage and your sacrifice. And we wish you happy Hunger Games and may the odds be ever in your favor." After his speech the tributes all head back to their stylists.

"That was amazing." Cinna tells Katniss and Peeta.

"It was." Haymitch and Effie agree.

"Are you sure you should be near an open flame?" Katniss challenges the blonde man.

"Are you sure you…" Haymitch starts to say but stops upon seeing the 2nd districts tribute looking at them intently.

"let's uhm, let's go upstairs." Haymitch tells them, not breaking eye contact with the 2nd tribute until Hak, steps in the line of sight, headed for them.

"You looked good out there." He says approaching them relaxed, having left his glaive behind at the chariot.

"So did you, how'd you manage to do that lightning thing?" Peeta replies, eyeing the slightly taller teen with care.

"Ask him, I'm sure he'd know it. You do right?" Hak replies with a shrug and points at Cinna.

"Yes." Cinna answers, looking at him uneasy.

"I'm sorry did you want something? We were about to go upstairs." Katniss asks him.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to keep you. By all means go ahead." Hak tells them politely.

"Alright then follow me." Haymitch tells the group and leads them to an elevator which brings them to a very fancy suite for all of them. Effie shows them around the suite and tells them to clean up before dinner.

* * *

|the next day - training facility|

"In two weeks 23 of you will be dead and only one of you will be alive. This depends on how much you pay attention over the next four days. First, no fighting with the other tributes. You'll have plenty of time for that in the arena. There are four compulsory exercises the rest will be for individual training. My advise is, don't ignore the survival skills. Everyone wants to grab a sword but most of you will die from natural causes, 10% from infection, 20% from dehydration, exposure can kill as easily as a knife." One of the trainer tells the group before the training starts while the game host and a few major sponsors are watching them from a booth.

The compulsory training consists of plant knowledge, physical training, like using two gymnastic rings to get across bend beams, lighting fires and combat training.

Everyone goes through everything but the combat training on their first day and finish it off with individual combat training.

"Hey, is it really forbidden to even spar lightly if both sides agree?" Hak asks one of the trainers.

"Yes." He simply replies.

"Alright, just wanted to check. Mind getting some more trainers? There must be a few ones not occupied." Hak asks him.

"Alright." The man replies shrugging his shoulders and leaves to get four more trainers.

"Good, good. Now come at me, I haven't had a real opponent in years." Hak says, readying himself for unarmed combat.

"Two trainer storm at him after exchanging looks with the others.

Hak ducks under the first ones punch while kicking out the second ones' legs with a sweeping kick. He then rolls over the downed man and axe kicks him in his chest hard, knocking the wind out of the man, who rolls himself off the training platform. The remaining four see that they have to take this very seriously and gather to make a quick attack plan.

After their gathering, during which Hak was stretching the four turn to him.

"You guys ready now?" Hak asks, watching them spread out around him. While they are circling him Hak also notices that he's got the attention of all the tributes.

"Yes." One says and the one behind Hak starts the attack, feigning a kick to his head but actually jumps to the side the last second while Hak simply stands there. The second one aims a jumpkick at Hak, who turns sideways while Grabbing the attackers foot and using his own momentum against him, sending him flying past a few tributes into a training dummy.

Another trainer gets angry and engages Hak in close combat, punching him in his ribs once before Hak can counter by grabbing the man's shoulder and violently headbutting him, knocking him out.

Hak turns to the last two trainers who attack, one trying to sweep his leg while the other one jumps at him, trying to tackle him. Hak jumps onto the sweeping leg, causing it to give out with a crunch and grabs the other man in a choke, keeping the hold strong while staring right at Cato, the 2nd districts tribute. When the man passes out Hak lets go of him and goes over to a training area with some trees in it, pushing past the shocked tributes which will have to go against him in a few days.

"Yo, Rue mind showing me that trick you told me about?" Hak shouts over to her, snapping her as well as the rest out of their shock as she goes over to him and shows him how she climbs trees faster.

"Hmm, I see." Hak says watching the small girl intently.

"Say Hak, are you going to fight me?" She asks him worried.

"Not if I don't have to. There is one thing you have to be aware of though." Hak replies, motioning for her to come closer and whispers "You see that girl over there? She is the one who must win at all costs. At least that's what I'm fighting for this time." While pointing at Katniss, who sees this and goes over to them against her better judgement as well as Peeta's warnings.

"Is something the matter?" She asks when she reaches the two tributes from district 11.

"No no, I was just telling my little friend here that I think you are very beautiful." Hak replies with a barely noticeable smile.

"Play your mind-games somewhere else." She tells him and goes over to the training platform with a knife instructor.

"Why didn't you tell her?" Rue asks confused.

"I don't think she remembers me …" Hak says before catching himself.

"Why am I telling you all this?" He asks himself, leaving the girl with the trees while he makes his way over to the shooting area, pulling a case of glaives with him, making some people give him an annoyed look at the rattling noise.

Hak sees a bow lying on a shelf at the shooting area and shrugs his shoulder, picking up the weapon and aims at one of the targets.

He fires and misses it completely. Not being bothered by this since he hadn't shot a bow in 2 years he takes the next arrow, letting it fly and again hits nothing. On his fifth arrow he at least hits the rim of the target. Getting annoyed at the district 1 and 2 tributes who have grouped up snickering at his failures he readies the next arrow but accidentally pulls the string back to far, making the metal frame break with a loud bang.

"Sorry, can someone please get another one? Or a few ones?" Hak requests and one of the trainer leaves while shaking his head.

Katniss makes her way over to him, taking the lane with targets next to him and picks up a few knifes.

"You don't want to try out the bow?" Hak offers her the remaining bow.

"No thank you. My mentor told me not to." She replies.

"He did huh? Well I'd recommend you try it at least once. They are not the same we know." He tells her.

"Hmpf." She grunts back and tries her luck at throwing knives, hitting the target but not making them stick, meaning they wouldn't hurt anyone more than getting a pebble thrown at them.

"Need some help?" He offers, still trying his luck at shooting, slowly getting closer to his mark.

"From you? No thanks. I'll get an instructor, I doubt you can do anything other than butt heads." She tells him, hoping to get him to leave her alone.

"No need to be mean, I'm only trying to be friendly." Hak tells her, taking three of her knifes and throws them in quick succession at his target, all hitting only quarter of an inch away from the bullseye. He then quickly picks up a glaive and throws it like a spear, hitting the target right in the middle as well as breaking its mounting. He goes over to the downed target and collects the knives, the glaive and the arrows scattered around him, bringing them back to Katniss.

"See?" He asks her.

"See what? That you're breaking everything?" She asks annoyed.

"No, before that. I middle all of the knives." He tells her.

"So?" Katniss asks.

"Nevermind." He says defeated and hands her back the knives.

He then takes another lane and gets back to practicing with his bow, actually being able to hit wherever he wants after the second shot and missing intentionally so the others will underestimate him. When Hak always shoots the same areas in the same succession on his tries, with some of them being vital areas She notices that he's only faking it and looks at with with a deadpan expression.

"Shh." He tells her with his finger over his lips.

"Now onto swords and daggers." He says winking at Katniss and holds out the bow for her but she doesn't accept it. He shrugs and leaves for the sword training area, where he again fakes being bad.

* * *

|that evening – district 12th floor|

"Easy career. You know what that is?" Haymitch asks the two teens while they're having dinner.

"District 1." Katniss says.

"And 2. They train at special academies and volunteer when they're 18. By that point they're pretty lethal." Haymitch tells them.

"But they don't receive any special treatment. In fact they have to stay in the same exact apartments you do." Efie tells them.

"So how good are they?" Peeta asks concerned.

"Obviously they are pretty good. They win it almost every year. But they can be arrogant and arrogance can be a big problem." Haymitch answers.

"So what's the situation, you can shoot?" Haymitch asks Katniss.

"I'm alright." She says.

"She's better than good. My father buys her squirrels, she hits them right in the eye." Peeta praises her.

"Peeta's strong. He can throw a 100 pound sack of flour right over his head." Katniss tells Haymitch.

"Well I'm not going to kill anyone with a sack of flour." Peeta says.

"Either way, like you said we didn't show what we can do to the others." Katniss tells Haymitch.

"What's even the point? I have no change of winning alright? Everybody knows it. You know what my mother said? She said that finally district 12 might have another winner and she wasn't talking about me." Peeta tells her.

"I'm not very hungry." Peeta says excusing himself and goes to his room.

"Haymitch, what about the guy from district 11?" Katniss asks him.

"Oh, you haven't heard?" Haymitch asks.

"Heard what?" Katniss questions.

"He is the champion of the 70th Hunger Games. If you go against him alone you'll be dead in seconds, believe me that. Basically, the only chance at winning against him is either with traps or grouping up with some tributes, but even then it's a long shot." Haymitch tells her.

"Is there anything else you know about him?" Katniss asks.

"Like what?" He asks. Effie gets pulled aside by a servant who asks her a question after which she quickly nods her head.

"We have a guest." Effie tells them.

"Who?" Haymitch asks confused.

"Hi there, hope I'm not interrupting your dinner." Hak greets them walking over to their table.

"What are you doing here? It's rather unusual for another tributes district to enter each other's apartment." Haymitch asks him cautiously, sliding a knife into his sleeve just in case.

"unusual but not forbidden." Hak tells the man, rounding the table so he can sit across from Katniss.

"you can put the knife back by the way, I'm not here to cause trouble. The opposite in fact." He tells them.

"What do you mean?" Effie asks confused and a bit upset at him just sitting down wherever he wants.

"I came to again offer my knowledge to the beautiful Katniss over here." Hak explains.

"If you want I can give you a few pointers on how to fight in the arena. I know you're smart and good enough to survive the nature, but can you handle man yet?" Hak asks her, raising an eyebrow challengingly.

"Why would you help me? I'm your opponent." Katniss questions wearily.

"That may be so, but I don't see it this way but I doubt you'll believe me even if I told you my reasons. So I'll wait for until we're in the arena to tell you. And you're ready to listen." Hak says.

"Look kid, I don't appreciate you barging in here and trying to sell us some piece of crap story here." Haymitch tells Hak annoyed.

"Alright, have it your way. But Katniss if you change your mind you're welcome in our apartment or I can come back here anytime." Hak offers, getting up and leaving them alone.

"Who does he think he is? Trying to play the innocent sheep while he's actually the most dangerous wolf out there." Haymitch says angrily.

"I could learn something from him though. And I have seen how strong he is." Katniss says thoughtfully.

"Look Katniss, I can't order you not to do it, I can only advise you not to do it." Haymitch tells her.

Over the next three days the tributes all train themselves diligently while Hak is just hanging around the tree area, climbing them or running in the terrain, anything to get used to the coming surroundings.

"Tomorrow they'll bring you in one by one and evaluate you. This is important because higher ratings will mean sponsors. This is the time to show off everything. There'll be a bow and you make sure you show your strength. The two of you will be last, but I have to stress this, make sure they remember you." Haymitch tells Peeta and Katniss over dinner.

* * *

|the next day – at the evaluations|

Katniss and Peeta are sitting on a bench in the waiting room tense as can be while Hak is almost asleep on another. Rue, the girl from his district was just called in.

"You nervous?" Hak asks them, looking directly at Katniss from his lying position.

"Yes, now please leave us alone." Peeta tells him, annoyed that over the past few days Hak often showed his face around Katniss.

"I wasn't talking to you." Hak replies, still looking at Katniss, waiting for an answer.

"Yes I'm nervous." Katniss answers, feeling he won't leave the matter alone.

"Let me give you some advice. I have been there after all. Aim 4 degrees to your right. And don't be afraid to show your personality. You are very straight forward and not afraid to show yourself, make that clear to them and you'll get good ratings." Hak advises.

"4 degrees?" Katniss asks confused, but then his name gets called.

"I got to go, if you feel like you need help take a breather and remember what I said." Hak tells her, brushing over her shoulder gently while he walks past her to the entrance.

Katniss gets called in a few minutes later and announces herself to the people on the stands talking amongst themselves wildly. She takes a bow and fires an arrow, only hitting the outer rim of the target, making the judges laugh and ignore her.

"She looks at them and the target confused, picking up another arrow and takes a breather, remembering what Hak told her and fires it, hitting the arrow dead center this time after correcting the 4 degree angle Hak told her about. She looks back at the booth and sees that no one is watching her, so to grab their attention she remembers Hak's words about her personality and not being afraid to show it. She picks up another arrow and fires it into the booth, pinning the apple which is in a fried pigs' mouth onto a wall.

"Thank you for your consideration." She says bowing to them and leaves, putting the bow back while they watch her stupefied.

* * *

|A couple hours later -12th apartment|

The group is waiting for the results

They are getting berated by Effie.

"It's just fine." Cinna tells the woman.

"Just fine? How about showing some manners." Effie tells them.

"Finally, Haymitch, I hope you notice we have a dire situation." She tells Haymitch who joins the group of four while giving Katniss a thumbs up.

"Nice shooting sweetheart. What did they do when you shot the apple?" Haymitch asks stifling a few giggles.

"They looked pretty startled." Katniss replies.

"Hahaha, now what did you say? Thanks for considering? Genius." Haymitch laughs when she nods her head.

"I would have given everything to have seen their faces." Haymitch tells her.

A bit later they are watching the revealing of the ratings.

The announcer reveals the ratings starting from district 1 and everyone has gotten anything in between 4 or 10 when he gets to district 11. Rue from district 11 with a score of 7. Hak from district 11 with a score of 12. Katniss Everdeen from district 12 with a score of 11 and Peeta Mellark with a score of 8.

"Yes!" Cinna shouts out with everyone else celebrating as well, for both of their scores.

"Congratulations." Peeta tells her sounding as though he just threw up in his mouth.

"I thought they hated me." Katniss says surprised.

"They must've liked your guts." Haymitch tells her.

"To Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire." Cinna says cheers to everyone and they share a drink.

"I'm sorry, I have to excuse myself for a moment." Katniss tells them, leaving their apartment.

"Where is she going?" Haymitch asks confused.

"To the 11th districts apartment. By the way, I want to be trained on my own from now on." Peeta tells him, going to his room.

"You have a guest." A servant for the 11th district tells Hak and rue, who have been watching the announcement on the TV themselves, with their escort.

"Let her in." Hak replies and the servant opens the door for Katniss.

"Wow, it's exactly the same." She says surprised.

"It is, congratulations." Hak tells her, offering a seat to her.

"Thank you and I think I should congratulate you shouldn't I?" She asks.

"Phe there really wasn't any other score they could've given me." Hak tells her with a shrug.

"What do you mean?" Katniss asks.

"I mean, I didn't even do anything when I was supposed to be presenting my skills, they just asked me a few questions and send me away." Hak tells her with a scoff.

"Weird." She says.

"Yeah well, as I was saying before Katniss arrived Rue 7 isn't a bad score, when I first entered, I only had an 8 and that was enough to win." He tells the girl.

"But you were trained. I am not." Rue replies.

"Look, I told you our plan right? I'm sorry that I can't do more for you but this has been my intention for the last 4 years." Hak tells her.

"I know, I'll just have to hope for the best." She says some tears welling up in her eyes.

"Yeah, maybe It'll all work out." He tells her before she disappears in her room.

"Plan?" Katniss asks surprised.

"Yeah, I told her I'd try to protect her if we cross paths and I am not needed elsewhere." Hak says.

"Where would you be needed?" Katniss asks confused.

"Don't worry about it." Hak tells her.

"So what brings you to our not so humble abode?" Hak asks the girl.

"I came to thank you for your help." Katniss tells him.

"You are welcome." Hak replies.

"But there is one thing I maybe should have warned you about beforehand. High ratings mean more people out to get you. Especially those from district 1 and 2 will be gunning for your head." Hak tells her.

"I know." Katniss replies.

"Also with the Game starting soon, one more thing be careful of your surroundings. I studied the past three Hunger Games, who have our current Game Master and he isn't shy to interfere to get a fight going, like a spreading forest fire, some kind of animal attack or an event to lure everybody in." Hak advises her.

"Why were you studying the last three Hunger Games? Why are you here anyways?" Katniss asks.

"Wait until tomorrow, maybe you'll understand after the interview. If not then maybe during the Game." Hak tells her.

"OK. I better head back or Haymitch won't let me live it down." Katniss tells him and leaves the apartment.

* * *

|the next evening - interview|

After interviewing the people from district 1 to 10 as well as Rue Hak is the next one up and enters the stage, dressed in a fancy version of his Chinese battle dress.

"Next up we have Hak the Thunderbeast!" Cesar says, making the crowd go wild while Hak walks over to the blue haired man.

"Cesar, it's nice to see you again." Hak greets him with a handshake.

"Hak, please join me." Cesar says sitting down with him.

"So first question which is on every bodies mind is, why are you competing this year? Being a champion, you are free from the reaping, but you bravely volunteered for your district." Cesar asks.

"Well, I heard that there is someone competing who is worth trying to protect." Hak answers.

"Ohh, a girl?" Cesar asks.

"Yes." Hak confirms, causing the crowds to cheer even louder.

"Dare I ask who?" Cesar questions.

"How about this Cesar, you give your written guess to my escort and if you were right you can have my trophy. You know which one I'm talking about." Hak offers.

"Hah. And what if I'm wrong?" Cesar asks after gasping while the Glaive Hak won is displayed on the screen behind them.

"How about you treat me to dinner?" Hak suggests.

"That sounds like a good deal to me." Cesar says joyfully and shakes Hak's hand.

"The publicum can guess too, I'll even give you a hint. It's not Rue." Hak tells them.

"You sly dog." Cesar laughs after everyone was waiting for the hint and only gets a pretty obvious answer.

"One question before you leave, what will happen if you two were the last ones to survive?" Cesar asks Hak, making the crowd go silent in anticipation.

"I'd probably lay down my life for her." Hak tells him honestly, making the crowd cheer again.

"Good luck to you Hak and I hope I'll see you again." Cesar tells him.

After him Katniss enters the stage, her mind still being on Hak's interview, guessing that he meant her although she doesn't know why. She quickly rebounds from her momentary freezing up and engages Cesar in small talk, showing the crowd that the rim of her dress can go up in flames too.

After this Cesar asks her about her sister and wishes her good luck in the Games.

After Katniss, Peeta is the last one to go on stage and he tells Cesar and the rest that he is in love with Katniss.

After his interview Katniss presses him against a wall and accuses him of sabotaging her and making her look weak.

Haymitch peels her off Peeta and tells her that he made her look desirable.

"He did you a favor. I can spin a story on star-crossed lovers from district 12." Haymitch tells her.

"We are not lovers." Katniss shoots back.

"It's a god damn television show." Haymitch tells her.

"And being involved with him could get you sponsors and even save your damn life." Haymitch tells her.

* * *

That night Katniss can't sleep and sneaks out of the apartment, going downstairs to the 11th.

Hak gets woken by a servant and tells them to let Katniss in.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" She asks him.

"Kinda." He tells her, nodding his head sleepily while leaning up in his bed and motions for her to take a seat.

"I couldn't sleep and part of the reason is, my mind has been wondering were you talking about me?" She asks Hak.

"Yes." Hak confirms this.

"Why would you want to protect me? We don't even know each other." She tells him.

"We did at one point, maybe we still do I don't know it's complicated." Hak tells her.

"What do you mean?" She asks.

"I don't know how to explain what happened Catnip. I'm sorry. I just really don't. You don't know how much I want to explain but I…" He says, taking her hands in his but releases them after a second of speechlessness on his part.

"I'm sorry, this shouldn't distract you when the competition starts tomorrow. The only thing you need to know is I'm on your side." He tells her.

"I better get back now." She says, still not sure if he's only screwing with her or if he's serious about his claim that they know one another.

* * *

|the next day |

"They'll put all kind of stuff right out front. Even a bow. Don't go for it." Haymitch advises her.

"Why not?" She asks.

"It's a bloodbath. You turn, run and find high ground and don't step off that pedestal early or they'll blow you sky high." Haymitch tells her as they are making their way to a shuttle with which they are transported to the arena. When they arrive at the arena they enter compartments underneath it, where they receive their clothes from their respective designers.

Cinna fixed the mocking jay pin on the inner part of Katniss's jacket and motions for her to keep quiet about it.

"Thank you." Katniss says, brushing over the metal.

30 seconds. A voice says, meaning Katniss has to enter her tube soon.

"I'm not allowed to bet but if I could I'd bet on you." Cinna tells her, kissing her forehead while Katniss is shaking from fear.

When she reaches the tube, once again patting her pin she remembers what Hak told her last night. Or to be exact she remembers him calling her Catnip, something only one other boy has done before. The one who taught her how to shoot, the one who comes from district 11 and the one who disappeared right when Hak was crowned Hak the Thunderbeast victor of the 70th Hunger Games.

'It can't be.' She tells herself.

'I always thought he died. Afterall why wouldn't he show himself?' Katniss thinks.

'It must just be coincidence he used that name.' Katniss finishes her thought and claps her cheeks to get her mind back on track with the tube elevating her up onto the tributes' starting platform.

* * *

AN: Let me know what you think :)


	2. Chapter 2

Once Katniss reaches the top she looks around herself and sees her fellow tributes scattered in a half circle around the cornucopia, where a huge load of weapons and provisions is lying out front taunting the contestants. Looking to her right she sees Hak 4 spots away from her, giving her an encouraging nod.

She then looks to her left and sees Peeta at the far end of the left side. The two exchange a look at the cornucopia, or more exactly at the bow lying out front and Peeta shakes his head negative, warning her of trying to get the weapon.

A countdown starts and once it reaches 0 the contestants all sprint off in various directions, some running away from the cornucopia, like Peeta and some running for the weapons like the group consisting of the first and second districts' tributes.

Katniss runs parallel to the cornucopia, not having made up her mind yet but stops in place when she sees the four tributes of the first districts kill their fellow tributes violently, regardless of their age.

In all this carnage she sees Hak simply walking through the fighting, heading straight to the back of the cornucopia, probably going for a glaive.

Ktaniss catches herself and sees a tribute grabbing one of the stray backpacks lying at the outer edge of what now has become a battlefield and copies the action, running for another one before taking off into the woods.

When she reaches the backpack she takes off running only to trip after a few steps. She turns around hearing someone behind her and sees a tribute almost upon her, armed with an axe but he quickly goes down when Clove threw a knife into his back.

Katniss sees her throw another knife, this time at her and she uses her backpack as a shield before getting up and running away, only looking back once to see the district 2's girl getting knocked over courtesy of Hak, who now armed with a glaive and a dagger is heading for Katniss.

Katniss doesn't feel like she should trust him and continues to run away as fast as her legs can carry her with Hak going after her but taking his time, figuring he'd scare her if he was right behind her anyways.

Katniss continues to run through the woods for maybe 10 minutes before she stops and looks into her backpack, taking inventory of her equipment when suddenly cannons start firing 6 times, signaling that six tributes have been killed.

* * *

After this Katniss goes looking for water, finding a source after a while and fills up her bottle before she sets a trap and hunts for food.

By late afternoon she managed to catch a rabbit and cooks it on a fire she purposefully kept very small so she won't be spotted. After eating the animal, she climbs a big tree and lies down, leaning against the trunk while she ties her legs around the branch she is resting on.

In the meantime, Hak continues to track her, eating a few mushrooms on the way as well as drinking some water from the small pond Katniss found.

A few minutes after Katniss rests on the tree the Game Makers dim down the surrounding so it simulates nighttime and send a holographic announcement on the sky, showing who has died.

When Katniss is about to go to sleep she smells smoke and looks to her left, seeing a light source in the woods and rolls her eyes at the stupidity of the tribute.

Mere minutes after she spots the fire a loud female scream is heard from that direction and she presses herself closer to the tree, assuming that whoever killed the girl is heading her way.

Mere moments later she sees that she was correct in her assumption when 5 people walk through the woods, passing right underneath her.

"Hey, loverboy are you sure she went this way?" Cato asks Peeta who was lagging behind the tributes from district 1 and 2.

"Yeah I'm sure. That was her snare we found back there." Peeta replies.

"Are you sure we shouldn't just kill him now?" Glimmer asks Cato.

"No, we'll kill him when he brought us to her." Cato tells the blonde girl.

The group then continues on their path, looking for Katniss, who watched the scene from the tree, feeling betrayed by her fellow tribute from district 12.

* * *

After a couple of hours Katniss wakes up and gets down from her tree. She heads into a direction she assumes she'd be safe since no one else went this way.

The Game Hosts have a different idea however. When Katniss is near the outer edge of the arena, almost 2 kilometers away from the nearest tribute they intend to turn her around.

When it's night time again Katniss climbs another tree, tying herself to a branch again and goes to sleep, only to wake 3 hours later, hearing a loud noise coming from behind her. She looks around the tree and sees a forest fire heading her way.

Katniss quickly unties herself and jumps down the tree she then starts to run away from the fire, dodging a couple of fireballs headed right at her, shot by the Game Hosts.

Hak, who tracked her through the night, is close to her location and when he hears an explosion take off, added to the fact that heavy smoke is rising in that direction he takes off towards the location of the explosion in a wild dash.

Katniss continues to outrun the fire and the fireballs until the Game Hosts drop a flaming tree right in her path, stopping her from continuing that direction.

She runs another direction towards a group of boulders. When she reaches them however another fireball explodes right beside her with the expanding flames burning her on her right leg.

Katniss looks at the wound in pain, grunting and panting before she looks ahead of herself, hearing someone yell something and sees Hak running towards her, still a long distance away while a fireball is coming right at her. She manages to jump to the side just in time and rolls down a slope. After getting back on her feet she takes of a wild dash into the direction of the middle of the arena to get away from the fire. Soon after she reaches a river and goes in it, relaxing in it, hoping it'll help with her wound.

Hak, who watched her run towards the center follows her, still quite a distance between them.

Katniss after lying down in the river for maybe half a minute hears voices heading her way and takes off in a run, as fast as she can with her damaged leg upon seeing the tributes of the first two districts.

The group of 5 chase after her, closing their distance gradually snice she is limping through the woods. Hearing the voices grow closer she finds a large tree and climbs it, hoping to get high enough where they won't reach her.

When she is halfway up the tree the group catches up to her and Cato starts to climb after her with much difficulty.

After getting a few feet up he grabs a branch not strong enough to support his weight and falls down.

After he fell down Glimmer shoots an arrow at her, missing her barely while Katniss is pressing herself to the tree, to make herself a small a target as possible.

Cato grabs the bow and tries his luck, missing her as well.

"Maybe you should throw the sword." Katniss taunts them while she's sitting on a branch.

Hak arrives at this scene, still unnoticed by both the group and Katniss.

"Let's just wait her out. She's got to come down at some point, it's that or starve to death." Peeta suggests.

"OK, Peeta is right." Cato agrees, putting his arm around the teen before he twists his neck, killing the tribute from district 12.

"Now, somebody make a fire." Cato tells the group sitting down against a tree with Glimmer while both Clove and Marvel leave to get wood for the fire, dragging Peeta's corpse away behind them.

Katniss who watched them kill Peeta gasps out in shock while tears start to slide down her face.

Hak sees that Katniss is safe for the time being and stays hidden, watching Katniss who is trying to take care of her wound with the water she has, which doesn't help at all while she is cringing in pain.

"Stay safe until I come get you." Hak says quietly before he disappears from the clearing, heading straight back where he came from towards the fire, which is still burning away.

* * *

Hak looks around himself once he reaches the tree which blocked Katniss's path and sees a camera, hidden in a tree.

"I know this thing transmits audio, so here is a message for my sponsors. I trust you with my life, this is proof of my conviction." Hak tells the camera before he takes off his jacket and goes over to the fire.

"What is he doing?" An announcer for the games asks while he is displayed on everyone's screens.

Hak looks towards the camera and holds his forearm over the fire, barely flinching while the fire burns him.

After a few seconds he takes his arm out of the fire and holds it up high, signaling he's proud of the fact that he is a tribute and his trust in his sponsors.

"Well if that kid isn't receiving anything, I don't know anyone more deserving of a gift." The announcer says after watching the scene speechlessly.

Hak doesn't have to wait long until he hears a beeping coming from within the forest and he makes his way to the small packet, opening it and takes out a container with some cream on it.

After this Hak does a mockingjay call, something he knows Rue will recognize.

While waiting, hoping the small girl will show up Hak smears a third of the cream onto his wound, enough for it to get treated enough so he can operate freely but maybe not get away scar-less.

"Thank you." Hak says into a camera, storing away the remainder of the medicine.

An hour later Hak, who was resting against a tree hears rustling closeby and sees Rue carefully making her way towards him.

"Good to see you. I was hoping you'd get the message." Hak tells her.

"So you won't kill me?" She asks fearfully, eyeing his glaive.

"No, your safe at least for a while." Hak tells her truthfully.

"Why'd you signal me?" She questions, sitting down across from him.

"I need some help, Katniss is trapped and wounded, and she needs this medicine but I'm not able to get it to her, you will be." Hak tells the girl.

"How?" Rue asks confused.

"She is hiding on a tree with some tributes waiting for her to get down. There are some high trees around her, but I wouldn't be able to climb them. You're light enough and small enough for them to hold you." Hak says.

"OK, I'll do it." Rue agrees since she likes Katniss and doesn't want to anger Hak anyways.

"Come on." Hak tells her and leads them quietly to a ridge overlooking the tree and the other tributes who have fallen asleep, same as Katniss.

"She is asleep." Rue whispers.

"You take this and get up that tree. I'm going to wake her." Hak says, helping Rue to start climbing a closeby tree from which a branch extends close to the branch Katniss is resting on.

Hak picks up a small pebble, throwing it up a few times, testing out his own wound and finding that it's almost as good as new. He carefully aims at Katniss and throws it in a high arch, so it wouldn't have enough speed to wake the others up if it hits the tree.

After a few missed shots he manages to hit her on her arm with the pebble, making her wake while looking around her with panic.

Hak stands up and waves both arms at her, showing himself to her. He then tells her to be quiet by putting his finger over his lips while pointing at the group underneath her.

Katniss nods her head at this.

Hak then points to Rue, who is almost on the branch she needs to go for her to pass Katniss the medicine.

When Rue is close to the girl she shows her the metal container and singals for Katniss to catch it. Katniss nods her head and catches the container after Rue gently threw it to her before making her way back to the ground.

Katniss looks at Hak, who motions for her to take the cream and apply it to her leg.

She nods her head and unties her legs, propping the burned leg up on the branch before she starts to smear the medicine on it with a quiet hiss.

After letting the medicine work for a moment she looks over to Hak, who is till watching her with worry in his eyes and mouthes "thank you."

Hak only gives her a smile before disappearing from sight, waiting for morning while Rue and Katniss sleep.

4 hours later the sun starts to go up and Hak shakes his young companion awake.

"I have an idea how to get Katniss down that tree." Hak whispers.

"What?" The girl asks.

"See those bees, she has to cut of the branch they're on." Hak tells the girl.

"OK, I'll tell her." Rue says and takes off up a tree while Hak gently throws pebbles at Katniss again.

After waking up Katniss looks at him and Rue, who then points upwards towards the branch with a bee nest and motions for her to saw it off, making it fall at the other tributes.

Katniss looks at her wound and sees that it's almost completely healed before she starts to climb the tree until she's within arm's reach of the branch.

She takes out her knife and uses the serrated backside to saw through the branch, getting stung a few times while she stifles cries of pain.

Moments later the beehive falls down and the four tributes on the ground take off running in every direction while Katniss climbs down the tree. After reaching the ground she sees Glimmer stung to death on the floor and takes her bow and arrow before she tries to walk away, only to fall down unconscious from the poison, the last thing she sees is a worried Hak picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder with the bow and arrow in his free hand.

Katniss then has nightmares about her father's death and Hak's disappearance 4 years back as well as her mother being almost lifeless after her father's passing.

Her nightmares last for three days during which Hak took both Katniss and Rue to a spot near the outer edge where they'd be safe for now with their backs to an enormous felled tree, giving them enough protection against the weather and blocking them from any attacker in that direction.

* * *

When Katniss wakes up she sees leaves sticking on her arms and her equipment resting beside her.

Next to her sits a sleeping Hak, his Glaive stuck in the ground and leaning against his shoulder while he rests.

Katniss looks up and sees Rue looking at her from behind a tree. She then gets up with some difficulty and goes over to the little girl, careful not to wake Hak.

"Rue? It's OK, I'm not going to hurt you." Katniss says, making the girl come out of her cover.

The two then prepare a bird Hak caught last day in silence.

When the food is ready Katniss wakes Hak, poking his leg a few times until he raises his head.

"Here." She tells him, offering him part of the bird with Rue already munching away at her piece.

"Thanks." Hak says, accepting the food while laying aside his weapon and joining the two girls for the meal.

"I think that is my line." Katniss tells him.

"How long was I asleep?" Katniss asks the two.

"three days. We changed your leaves twice." Hak replies.

"Thank you." She thanks the both of them.

"So what happened while I was out?" Katniss questions.

"The girl from 1 and the boy from 10." Rue tells her.

"Oh god Peeta." Katniss says recalling her fellow tributes death.

"Yeah, he died too but you know that." Hak says.

"This is all just so screwed up. How did you get the medicine by the way?" Katniss asks them.

"There are ways." Hak only says, pulling his left arm's sleeve further down.

Katniss sees this and rolls the sleeve up, revealing a burn on his arm.

"Don't worry about it. I know what I'm doing." Hak only says putting the sleeve back in place.

"Sooo, should I give you two some privacy?" Rue asks them mirthfully.

"No." Hak tells her while Katniss says "Yes.", making Rue take a walk.

"What do you mean yes?" Hak asks confused.

"There is something I need to ask you, and don't beat around the bush again!" Katniss tells him.

"Are you the boy I knew up until 4 years ago?" Katniss asks him, paying close attention to catch any sign of deceit.

"How'd you figure it out? I thought you didn't remember me." Hak asks surprised, taking another bite of the bird.

"You called me Catnip, you're the only one who never listened to me not to call me that." She tells him.

"Hmpf." Hak grunts as reply.

"So, where were you all this time, why didn't you come back after winning the Games?" Katniss asks.

"That's a long story." Hak sighs.

"We got time don't we?" Katniss replies, motioning around them.

"OK, well for one the first two years I had to tour around, visiting the districts and playing the grateful hero of the nation. And when I came back home my foster father had already passed away, leaving me his hut in the forest we used to hunt in." Hak starts his explanation.

"And then?" Katniss inquires.

"Seriously, you haven't figured it out at all. And here I thought you were bright Catnip." Hak teases her.

"Shut up." She tells him, playfully hitting his leg.

"Well after my father died the people of the 11th district hated me, blaming me for his death and I had to disappear so to speak. I moved into the hut he left me and disguised myself with a mask. After that as you should know I tried checking in with you, but you didn't want me around, but I kept tabs on you, you just didn't know about it." He tells her.

"Wait so you're the weird animal mask dude?" She asks genuinely surprised.

"Yeah." He replies.

"You two done?" Rue asks them, appearing in their line of sight.

"Yeah." Katniss tells her, squeezing Hak's hand once.

"So what happens now? Where are Cato and the others?" Katniss asks her two new comrades.

"They've got all their supplies piled up in a pyramid down at the lake." Rue tells her.

"That sounds tempting." Katniss replies.

"I don't like that look of yours, not one bit." Hak tells Katniss while shaking his head with a small smirk.

That night Katniss and Rue cuddle together on a makeshift hammock while Hak sleeps on one of the branches they are tied in between.

Katniss looks up at the sky but only sees a dark sky simulated by the Game Hosts with a blue grid visible in it.

"That's one sight I really didn't miss." Hak tells her, looking up as well.

"You mean from the 70th Games?" Katniss asks.

"Yeah." Hak replies.

"How did you win anyways? I was never allowed to watch it, because at the time I was too young according to my mother. That was back when she still cared." Katniss asks him.

"I payed a price for the win, but I survived. And afterwards I kept training to become stronger and better for when the time comes and you'd need me." Hak tells her, still looking up.

"What price?" Katniss asks confused.

"Another time, for now go to sleep. You deserve some rest Catnip." He tells her, squeezing her good leg for support.

* * *

The next day Katniss came up with the plan to lure Cato and his crew away from their camp by making a big smoke signal which Rue will light, while both Katniss and Hak will destroy their supplies.

"We need a signal in case one of us gets held up." Rue says.

"OK the usual?" Hak asks.

"Watch this." Rue tells Katniss and sings something, which the mocking jays repeat after her.

"Mocking jays. That's smart." Katniss says.

"Back home we use them to signal all the time." Rue tells her.

"Ok so if we hear that it means we'll be back real soon." Rue says.

"We're going to be OK." Katniss tells her trying to reassure the girl and hugs her for good luck.

"Let's go." Katniss tells Hak, who picks up his Glaive and follows her to the camp.

Half an hour later both Katniss and Hak arrive at the edge of the woods overlooking Cato's campsite and see the ground near the platforms digged up.

"They made a minefield around the pyramid." Hak informs her.

"Are you sure?" Katniss asks.

"Yeah." Hak tells her glaring at the pyramid.

"Guys come on, look!" Marvel tells his companions pointing at the line of smoke rising from the woods.

Cato, Marvel and Clove then take off in that direction while another tribute is left behind to guard the supplies.

After the three left Katniss is about to step out of their cover to start their plan but Hak stops her, nodding at the opposite treeline where the district 5 girl runs out and dodges the mines, stealing something from the supplies and takes off in a sprint towards the nearest treeline. The guarding tribute heard the noise and goes towards the treeline to check it out.

"Now." Hak tells Katniss, who aims her bow at a bag with oranges hanging on top of the pyramid.

She fires and arrow at the bag, ripping it at the top part.

"Relax, you got this." Hak tells her, putting his hand on her back reassuringly.

Katniss has a small smile and takes two steps forward, taking in a deep breath before releasing the arrow, this time cutting the bag at it's bottom, making the fruit fall out of it and onto one of the mines, which set of a chain explosion which knocks Katniss of her feet while her ears are ringing.

Hak quickly hefts her over his shoulder and takes her back into the woods.

"I'm OK now." Katniss tells him after a minute or two.

"OK." Hak says, letting the girl down.

"We should be far enough away now." Hak tells her when suddenly a boom is heard and the tribute guarding the pyramid is shown on the sky, meaning he was killed.

"Did I?" Katniss asks unsure if she killed him.

"No, I bet that was Cato." He tells her.

Katniss then whistles a tune for the mocking jays to repeat and they make their way to their meeting spot with Rue.

The two of them arrive at the location close to where she lit the fires and see her missing. They then hear her scream for help, yelling "Katniss!" over and over.

Katniss and Hak make their way towards where she is screaming from and arrive at a clearing where they see Rue trapped under a net, tied down against some trees.

"Katniss wants to rush out but Hak tries to stop her she rips herself out of his hold however and sprints over to Rue, with Hak following after her, eyeing the surroundings with care.

When Katniss reaches Rue, she cuts the rope and lifts the net off the girl, who immediately stands up and hugs her.

Rue then looks up fearfully at the opposite tree line where Marvel appears and throws a javelin at the two, Hak jumps at Katniss, knocking her out of the way in time but gets cut across his back by the weapon which continues on its path and hits Rue in the chest.

Katnis quickly recovering aims her bow and fires and arrow, hitting Marvel straight through his heart.

Hak rolls off Katniss's legs where he landed and the two look towards Rue, who stand there stupefied, the javelin sticking out of her chest.

She takes it out and falls over with Katniss catching her.

"It's OK." Katniss tells her, lying her down on the ground.

"Did you blow up their food?" Rue asks them.

"We did." Katniss tells her shaken up, tears rolling down her eyes and her voice becoming hoarse.

"Katniss, I got her, why don't you check if there is anyone else coming?" Hak asks Katniss, who knows that no one else is coming and that Hak knows this himself.

Katniss gets up sniveling and squeezes Rue's hand one more time before she leaves the two alone, slumping down against a tree only a few feet away.

"Hey Rue, you like birds right? Look up there are some you can't see in our district." Hak tells her, making the girl look to the sky while he takes out his knife and stabs her through her heart, saving her from a slow death.

"Sorry I couldn't do more for you." He tells her, zipping up her jacket while he cleans the blade of the girls' blood.

"Katniss, why don't you get some flowers for her?" Hak asks Katniss, knowing she is sitting around a tree crying to herself.

Hak gets up and reaches to his back, testing his wound.

"OK, I got this." Hak says and uses his glaive to dig Rue a shallow grave.

When Katniss comes back she has a bouquet of white flowers for the girl and wordlessly puts them in the little girls hands after Hak carefully placed her in the grave he dug.

Katniss still kneeling down at the girls grave kisses her forehead once before she gets up and hugs Hak for all she's worth, crying out into his chest. After maybe three minutes of crying Hak gently tells her "We need to continue." Getting Katniss to try and pull herself together, wiping her face with her sleeve and sees blood on her hands, coming from Hak's back. The two solemnly walk towards the river before Katniss stops, looking up at the sky and shows the cameras her three-finger salute, kissing her hand and displaying ring to index finger.

This gesture causes a riot to rise up in the 11th district, who are mourning Rue's death.

* * *

After her salute she joins Hak, who stopped to wait for her, and they head to the river.

"You are hurt. How bad is it?" Katniss asks him.

"I'll manage. Let's just get somewhere safe before we deal with this." Hak tells her.

While they are on their way to shelter Haymitch managed to convince the Game Host to give the people something to root for, young love. The Game Host agrees and gives the announcement that the regulations with only a single victor have been suspended and that from now on two victors may be crowned if one of them won a Hunger Game before.

"Hak, this means we both can get out of here." Katniss says exstatically, hugging the teen she has grown to trust.

"Yeah, lets just hope they don't change their mind." He whispers to her.

"Come on, it's getting dark." Hak tells her breaking the hug and leading them forwards while holding her hand.

A while later the two reach the river and find a cave there where they decide to take shelter.

"Here is good." He tells her, laying his Glaive down on the floor.

"So what do we do about your wound?" Katniss questions worried about him.

"Get some water please." Hak tells her, holding out her flask while he takes out his knife.

He follows her outside and cuts off part of the bark of a tree before taking it over to the river and washing the bark.

"Come on." Hak says once he's finished, holding his hand out for her which she accepts and he leads them back to the cave where he takes out some leaves from her backpack, having stored them in there while she was recuperating.

"What are you doing?" She asks him.

"This is a medicine. It won't work as well as the stuff I gave your for the burn but it'll keep me alive long enough till we're out of here, there are only Clove, Foxface and Cato left after all." Hak informs her, putting the leaves on the bark and soaking them with water before he starts to grind them into a paste with a rock.

"Can you help me with this?" Hak then asks her, taking off his Jacket and handing her the paste.

"Sure." She replies.

"Thank you." Hak tells her, lying down with a stick in his hand.

"Now, you need to push it in deep OK?" He tells her, squeezing her hand once before putting the stick in his mouth to keep himself from screaming.

"Katniss lies the bark next to him and picks up some paste with one hand. She spreads it over the cut going across his shoulders while putting her other hand on his lower back both for support and to keep him from pulling away. Once the wound is covered with the paste she leans down next to his ear and tells him "This next part will hurt." She then presses the paste into the wound, making Hak wince from the pain and tense up. This continues for little over a minute until she's done.

"Thank you." Hak says, taking the stick out of his mouth and taking a sip of water.

"You really don't have to thank me. You only got hurt whenever you protected me." She tells him, brushing over the burn on his forearm while she leans against the rock wall he's lying in front of.

"I'm just glad you're OK." Hak tells her.

"So the price you mentioned earlier. This it?" She asks him gently stroking over his back, where a good portion of his skin is burned.

"Yes. In the deciding fight I fell into a trap and had a mine explode next to me, catching me on the back." Hak explains.

"I'm sorry you went through all that and I wasn't there to help you, I even send you away when you tried to console me." Katniss apologizes, looking at him with guilt.

"Catnip, listen to me. There is nothing you could've done. And the sending me away was my fault, I was too scared to tell you who I am fearing you'd see me as damaged or dangerous." Hak tells her, holding her hand tightly while she lies down on her side, facing him.

Katniss closes the distance between them and gives him a quick kiss.

"You need to rest now." She tells him.

"Remember the one time when I hurt my hand while hunting in the woods?" She asks him.

"Yeah, it's not like you to delve in memories though." Hak tells her amused.

"shut up, remember what you said back then?" She asks him.

"Yeah, I asked you to trust me and I told you I'd take care of you." Hak replies with a small smile.

"Yes, well now it's my turn." She says kissing his cheek before lying down next to him hugging his arm close to her.

* * *

|the next day|

Katniss and Hak wake up to an announcement.

"Attention tributes, commencing at sunrise there will be a feast at the cornucopia, this will be no ordinary occasion, each of you need something desperately and we want to be generous Hosts." The voice tells them.

"Katniss, don't even think about it. If you go I might as well snap your neck myself and not have Cato do it." Hak tells her.

"But you need medicine, the story you spun about surviving long enough until the others die isn't good enough for me." Katniss tells him worried about him.

"OK. Then help me make more medicine. Go get some water while I collect the leaves." He tells her.

The two of them leave their cave, heading in opposite directions. Hak doesn't have to wait long until he finds what he's looking for and makes his way back to the cave.

"Catnip, I found them." He says into the cave only to see her nowhere in sight.

"Maybe she's still at the river?" He murmurs to himself, fetching his glaive just in case but doesn't see her at the river or on the way there.

"Son of a bitch, why does she have to be so headstrong." Hak curses and takes off towards the cornucopia in a mad dash while Katniss has a good lead on him, nearing the edge of the forest already.

Minutes later Katniss has been observing the podium with the 4 bags displayed on it for the last two minutes and finally decides to break her cover when once again the redhead from district 5 beats her to the punch and takes her bag before disappearing into the woods again.

Katniss takes this as a good sign and runs towards the podium as well, picking up both the bag for the 11th and 12th district before continuing on her path towards the opposite edge of the forest, but once she rounds the corner of the cornucopia Clove is already waiting for her and throws her knife at her head, Katniss manages to lean backwards in time to dodge it, getting a cut from her eyebrow to her hairline.

After the knifethrow Clove runs at Katniss, who manages to fire off two arrows which the well trained girl manages to dodge before she tackles Katniss to the ground, struggling with her until she manages to subdue the struggling Katniss and holds a knife to her neck.

"Where is your new loverboy?" Clove asks.

"Oh I see you were going to help him right? Marvel must've managed to get in some damage." Clove asks her.

"You know it's toob ad you couldn't help your little friend, Rue. Well we killed her and now's your turn." Clove tells her, taking out another knife and running it over the girls face with its backside.

When Clove rears her arm back to stab her Hak has arrived at the clearing moments before and sees her rear her hand back, knowing this can't mean anything good Hak flips his Glaive into another grip and throws it at Clove, hitting her right in the raised shoulder, making her fly off Katniss due to the amount of force behind the throw.

Hak runs over to his downed friend and helps her up before he approaches Clove, who is screaming for help from Cato.

"Just accept your fate. You were doomed the moment you targeted Katniss with me in the same arena." Hak tells her, ripping the glaive from the girls shoulder and placing it on the back of her neck, going down with a squelch, causing Katniss to cringe at the display of violence.

Hak swings his Glaive at the side once to flick off most of the blood before he stabs it in the ground next to him while walking over to Katniss.

"Katniss, I told you specifically not to come here." Hak shouts at her angrily.

"But you need this." Katniss challenges him, holding up the two bags.

"I don't need this, I need you." Hak says, reaching her and making her drop the two bags before he pushes her against a metal wall of the cornucopia and kisses her hungrily. They stay in this lip-lock for maybe a minute before he releases her and takes a step back, saying "You're going to make me worry to death one of these days you know."

"Sorry." She apologizes, her mind still racing because of the unexpected kiss.

"Just be careful alright? I didn't volunteer just to see you die." Hak tells her, caressing her face before picking up the two bags, putting them over his shoulder.

"Let's go." Hak tells her, grabbing her hand and picking up his glaive with the other.

"Yes." Katniss agrees, running beside him as they head back to their cave.

* * *

"Here, lie down." Katniss tells him, taking off her jacket and lying it down under him while he removes his jacket and shirt again.

"One thing first." He says stopping her dead in tracks and takes the medicine she just picked out of his districts' bag.

What are you…" Katniss asks but he silences her with a finger on her lips while he gathers a little medicine on another finger from his other hand and uses it to apply the medicine to the cut across her forehead.

"It'd be a shame to have something so unsightful remain on such a beautiful face." He tells her as he finishes treating her wound.

"I know this is about 2 years late but I have to tell you this before the finale. I love you and I am willing to die for you." Hak tells her honestly while looking deep into her gray eyes.

"I…" She whispers speechless.

"Don't worry, you don't have to say anything. I just wanted you to know if things don't pan out as we hope." Hak tells her and gives her a kiss on her cheek before lying down on her jacket.

"I'm ready." He tells her, holding out the medicine for her.

She wordlessly removes the herb paste he had her apply to his wound, rinsing the gash out with water and drying it carefully before she applies the new medicine to his wound.

"all done." She tells him maybe 15 minutes later and helps him into his shirt.

"Thank you." He says and puts his jacket down next to him, motioning for her to join him while he leans on his side.

"What's in the other bag anyways?" Hak asks her, nodding at the bag for district 12.

"let's see…" She says opening it and taking out a big blanket.

"Nice, come here." Hak tells her, lying down on his back careful not to stress it too much and holds his arm out for her. Katniss lies down next to her, head head resting in his shoulder while she drapes the blanket over them.

"Let's get some more rest." Hak tells her, playing with her braid with the hand she's lying on.

"Hak… I did like you when we were young. I just can't promise you I will still feel the same towards you, we've both changed so much." She tells him.

"Katniss don't worry about it, it's OK. I know you have that Gale guy you are very close to and you haven't exactly seen me for four years…" Hak says.

"Gale? Oh god no. He's like a big brother to me." Katniss tells him.

"Oh, and here I thought I was just too late." He says laughing because he's relieved.

"That's not it…" She says a bit embarrassed.

"Let's just wait and see. It's not like they said only couples are allowed to leave together." Hak jokes until Katniss leans up, puts one leg on the other side of his waist and leans close to him until they meet in a gentle kiss.

"Does it hurt like this?" Katniss asks him, lying down on his stomach with her head over his chest.

"No it's perfect." He tells her with a wide grin on his face.

Hours later the two of them wake up and Katniss immediately makes him take his shirt off to see that his back is almost completely healed, other than his old burn wound.

"Thank god." She says relieved and falls into his arms, hugging him as though her life depended on it.

"I'm here. It's all OK." Hak tells her calmingly while she sheds a few tears of relief.

"What do we do now?" She asks him.

"My guess is it's best if we head to the cornucopia. There are only two more remaining and I don't think Foxface is exactly the type for confrontation." Hak tells her, putting on his clothes before holding her jacket to help her into the cloth.

"You ready?" He asks her once she strapped her quiever around her shoulder and picked up her bow.

"Yes!" She tells him confidently and the two carefully make their way to the cornucopia, keeping an eye out since it's dark around them and they don't want to fall into some trap or get taken by surprise curtesy of the Game Hosts.

* * *

When they have cleared about 2/3 of the distance to the cornucopia they hear some weird howling coming from their side as well as a loud female shriek. Moments later a cannon if shot and the picture of foxface is shown in the sky.

"Down to Cato and us." Hak tells Katniss.

"It is the finale." She says.

The two continue on their way, now even more careful of their surroundings but after a few meters they get attacked by what appears to be a lion and dog crossbreed.

Hak gets tackled by it and holds it off when Katniss shoots an arrow through its neck but the dog-like creature shakes it off and starts to chase them.

"Run!" Hak yells at her, getting up and picking up the girl who was still aiming at the dog by throwing her over his shoulder, turning her around in his arms so she`s facing the right way.

"What are you doing?" She protests.

"You can't kill these things. I fought one once and it ended with it's head and body chasing me separately." Hak tells her, letting her down so they both run on their own and pick up more speed.

"What do we do?" She asks panicking.

"run to the cornucopia. Climb on it." Hak tells her. When the two reach the forest edge 5 more creatures appear and are closing in on them.

Hak throws his glaive into the buildings' side and slides down in front of the building, resting on one knee. Katniss uses his back as step and jumps onto his weapon, leaping from it onto the roof of the building. Hak pulls himself up on his weapon and jumps onto the roof as well moments before the weapon slides out of the wall and lands in the horde of creatures snarling at them.

"That was close." He says before getting punched in the face by Cato, making him go down on the floor while Cato throws Katniss halfway across the roof. Hak stops him by pulling on his leg, making the wounded teen fall down and Hak tries to throw him over the roof's edge but Cato kicks himself free and rushes at Katniss, throwing her over after she's just gotten up again.

Hak is hot on his heels and Cato expects this, using Hak's momentum against him, making him fly against a metal wall.

Cato drags Katniss over to the edge and chokes her while the creatures try to get to her before Hak packs Cato by his neck and slams him into the floor. Once down he leans down to the blonde man and punches him in his face multiple times until he's unconscious. After knocking him out Hak goes over to Katniss, checking on her and seeing she's not seriously hurt. He picks up an arrow from her quiver and shoves it through Cato's heart, killing him.

After this he kicks the body off the roof for the dogs to have.

"Sorry you had to see this." Hak apologizes to her, facing away from her ashamed at so casually killing another human.

"Is this why you didn't reveal yourself to me? You were ashamed for killing to survive?" She asks him, walking up behind him while the dogs quiet down, carrying away Cato's dead body.

"Yes." Hak answers after a minute of silence.

"Hak, look at me." She says gently, touching his back.

"Hak, look at me!" She repeats more sternly after he didn't move.

"Hak there is nothing to be ashamed of. We're only doing what we have to survive." She tells him, making him look at her, holding his face in her hands.

"But I was 12 and I killed 15 people." Hak tells her, close to choking up.

"And you saved me by doing it." She says hugging the taller teen close to herself with him returning the embrace, for the second time during the Games showing fear.

While they are hugging the sun rises. Once they let go of one another they climb down the structure with Hak simply jumping down before turning to Katniss, catching her when she slides down the building right behind him.

"We did it Catnip, we did it." Hak says happily, hugging the girl while she jumps on him relieved, making him carry her while they're hugging.

"Attention, please." A voice says, making Hak drop Katniss to her feet as they break their hug.

"There's been a slight rule change. The previous revision, allowing for there to be two victors is revoked, only one will be crowned." The announcer tells them.

Hak goes over to his glaive, picking it up and makes his way to Katniss, who stares at her bow with panic.

"Katniss, I think it's time we said goodbye." Hak says, holding out his glaive to her, handle first as he kneels down in front of her while she's still facing away.

"Hak, no!" She tells him curtly.

"If you won't live then so won't I." She tells him, taking the glaive and throwing both the glaive and her bow on the floor on each side.

"They need to have a victor." Hak tells her.

"No, they don't. Why should they? We just found each other again. I refuse to part from you." She tells him, holding out a hand with poisonous berries.

"You know that is Nylock right? It kills in minutes." Hak tells her.

"Trust me." She says, looking at him with conviction.

"I do." Hak says, standing up to look her in the eyes while she hands him half of the berries.

"Together?" Hak asks.

"Together." She tells him.

"OK." Hak agrees, giving her one last kiss.

"One." Hak then says, their foreheads leaning against each other.

"Two." She continues and they raise their hands.

"Three." Hak finishes, the berries almost at his lips same as Katniss.

"Stop!" The announcer then yells.

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the winners of the 74th annual Hunger Games." The Announcer says, making Hak and Katniss drop the berries relieved before hugging each other in a big embrace after which Hak picks her up by her legs and carries her while she gives him a kiss.

A ship then decends down to the two.

* * *

"They are not happy with you." Haymitch tells Katniss while they are standing on a balcony in the capitol.

"Why, because I didn't die?" She asks.

"Because you showed them up. This is serious, not just for you. They won't take this lightly." He warns her.

"I got nothing to lose." Hak says joining them on the balcony and gives her a kiss on her neck.

"I only have my family." She agrees, leaning into his embrace.

Days later the two are set to appear on Cesar's talk show together.

The two make their way on to the stage with Katniss wearing an elegant white dress while Hak has opted for a blue kimono.

"Cesar." Hak greets the blue haired man with a strong handshake while Katniss is linked with his other arm.

"Hak, good to see you again. And here we have the lovely Katniss." Cesar says, giving the girl a quick hug.

"Now first I have to say, I'm sorry but it looks like I owe you a dinner." Cesar tells Hak.

"So it seems." Hak replies, taking Katniss's hand and gives it a kiss.

"I have to ask you Katniss, how did you feel when he came to your help when you were trapped on that tree?" Cesar asks her.

"I felt like I didn't deserve so much luck to have someone protect me this courageously." She replies.

"And you Hak, how did you feel when She went to get your medicine?" Cesar asks him.

"I think you already know that, don`t you? Well I was pretty angry but only because I was afraid, I could lose her." Hak tells him, looking at Katniss.

"How did you feel when you learned how he knew you?" Cesar asks Katniss.

"Honestly, I still am shocked. I mean I thought he died at the 70th Hunger Games." Katniss replies, squeezing Hak's hand.

"And finally, you Hak, how did you feel when she accepted you for who you are after finishing the Game?" Cesar asks him.

"I feel like I am undeserving of her and just thank the heavens that she accepts me like I am." He says caressing Katniss's shoulder.

After the interview the two of them head to the crowning ceremony where president snow gives them their crowns, showing the world that they are the winners.

After all of the celebrations in their honor are done the two head back to their district with Effie and Haymitch.

* * *

"So, what do we do now that we won?" Hak asks Katniss while they watch the capitol disappear from sight through their train window.

"I don't know, maybe we'll try to forget." Katniss replies.

"Everything? Or just the bad parts?" Hak asks her, looking into her eyes with hope while he tentatively takes one of her hands in his.

"Honestly, I don't know." She sighs.

"Katniss, I am a man of my word. I won't pressure you into anything and I definitely won't force you to get you to like me. Take your time to decide, I won't be going anywhere." He tells her, kissing her cheek one more and moves to leave until he sees her wearing the mocking jay pin on her necklace.

"You still have it." He says contend and leaves with a smile while she looks down at her necklace.

A day later the two step out of the train in district 12, since Hak lives in between districts anyways and wave at the crowd cheering them on.

In the crowd Katniss spots her sister sitting on Gale's shoulder cheering for her with their mother standing next to her. Katniss who was only forcing herself to smile up to that point develops a real smile, relief setting in now that she's back home.

* * *

AN: please review and follow :)


	3. Chapter 3

Katniss gets company from Gale while she's hunting before she has to leave on hers and Hak's victory tour. On their way back they come across some turkeys and Katniss is excited at having the opportunity to catch one for her family but when she releases her arrow she gets a vision of killing Marvel like she did in the Hunger Games and starts to hyperventilate, panicking until Gale manages to calm her down after a bit.

"Are you coming to the trainstation?" She asks Gale when they stop at an abandoned house on their way to the victors' village.

"I think you've got enough people waiting there to say goodbye." Gale replies.

"Only few I actually care about." She says.

"It might be easier if I didn't." Gale tells her.

"It's only a few weeks." She says.

"A lot can happen in a few weeks." Gale tells her, looking around if somebody's listening in on them.

"Do we have to do this again? Gale, it was an act and I get that you don't like Hak, but he is a good person." Katniss tells him.

"Who kills people." Gale counters.

"I killed people." Katniss shoots back, defending her fellow victor.

"Yeah but there is a difference." Gale tells her.

"We both did what we had to survive. If I didn't I'd be dead. And you know he could've just sold me out if he wanted to or tried to force me to be his lover, but he let me off the hook, despite the fact that he actually has feelings for me." Katniss says.

Gale kisses her, catching her by surprise.

"I had to do that, at least once. To let you know Hak isn't the only one with feelings for you." Gale tells her and then walks away. Katniss stands frozen in place for a moment, caught of guard by his confession before she continues her way to her new home in the victor's village, where she is greeted by her sisters' cat growling at her when she first enters through the gates.

* * *

"Haymitch!" Katniss shouts, knocking on the door belonging to her drunken mentor.

Getting no reply she enters the home and wakes him by splashing water on his head in his drunken sleep. Once getting woken with the water Haymitch shoots up screaming and starts to slash around him with a knife.

"What are you doing?" He asks her angrily.

"Camera's are going to be here in an hour." Katniss tells him.

"Hey, you beat me to it huh?" Hak asks, entering through the kitchen, a plate with meat in his hand.

"You want some food too Catnip?" Hak asks her, sitting down at Haymitch's table while he puts the food in front of the man.

"No, I ate at the mall but thank you." She replies, sounding a little forced after he uses his nickname for her.

"Alright." Hak replies and fetches Katniss's mentor a glass with booze.

"Ugh, you kids have some warming up to do before the camera's show up." Haymitch tells them.

"Which is in an hour so take a bath Haymitch." Katniss tells her mentor.

"I thought I just did." Haymitch replies, looking after her as she leaves his house.

"Come on she's doing the best she can given the circumstances." Hak tells him.

"You know, for the love of god I don't understand how she deserves you." Haymitch tells him, getting up grumpily.

"Love is mysterious, who are we to question it." Hak tells him with a small, though sad chuckle as he looks after where Katniss disappeared.

"Hey Haymitch, where did you put the clothes I was send anyways?" Hak asks the blonde man he's been staying with for the last 3 months.

* * *

"Did you have a good walk dear?" Katniss' mother greets her nervously when Katniss appears in the door.

"Walk? I was just…" Katniss says until Prim interrupts her, saying "We have visitors."

"Mrs. Everdeen, this way please." A guard from the capitol tells her, leading her to a study where President Snow is waiting for her.

"Presidents Snow, what an honor." Katniss says seeing the man who watches a recording of her last actions in the Hunger Games.

"Dear, I think we can make this so much simpler if we agree not to lie to each other don't you think?" He offers her.

"Yes, that would indeed save time." She agrees.

"Sit down please." He says, taking a seat across from her.

"I have a problem Mrs. Everdeen." He tells her, shutting off the recording.

"A problem that came the moment you revealed those poison berries. If the Game Master had any brains at all he would have blown you to bits then and there. But here you are and I think you can guess where he is." Snow tells her.

"Yes, I think so." Katniss agrees, feeling as tense as she can be.

"After that fiasco there was nothing left to do other than let you play out your little scenario and you were very good. Impressive, you convinced the people of the capitol but unfortunately not everyone in the districts fell for it and in several of them people viewed your move with the berries as an act of defiance. And if a girl from district 12 no less can defy the capitol, what is to stop them from doing the same? What is left to prevent an uprising? And then it's just time until the whole system collapses." Snow tells her.

"It must be a frail system if it can be brought down by a few berries." Katniss says.

"It is indeed, but not in the way you imagine it." Snow warns her.

"What should I imagine?" She asks.

"You should imagine thousands upon thousands of your people dead. Your district reduced to ashes. Imagine it gone, as though it never existed like district 13." Snow warns her.

"You fought very hard in the Games Mrs. Everdeen, but they were games. Do you want a real war?" He asks.

"No." She quickly replies.

"Good, neither would I." He tells her.

"Did your mother make this?" Snow asks her, holding up a turkey leg.

"Hak." She informs him.

"Oh, what a courageous boy. But at what point did he realize the depth of your indifference towards him?" Snow asks.

"I'm not indifferent." Katniss tells him.

"Don't lie!" He says.

"Why don't you just kill me now?" Katniss asks him.

"I don't want to kill you. I want us to be friends but for that to happen… When you and Hak are on tour you need to smile, you need to be grateful but above all you need to be madly enough in love to be prepared to end it all, you understand?" He asks her.

"Yes." Katniss replies.

"Say it." He requests.

"I'll convince them." She says.

"No, convince me." Snow tells her.

"For you Mrs. Everdeen. Do, convince me for the sake of your loved ones." Snow tells her, handing her a white rose and plays a recording of Gale kissing her but it's been altered to a point where she's wearing a wedding dress and he's in a tux. After his visit with Katniss he leaves her house and stops by at Haymitch's where he plays him the same message, warning him about Katniss's intentions.

A couple minutes after the President left Effie, Cinna and 2 other stylists arrive.

They then help Katniss prepare for her appearance on TV.

* * *

Welcome, welcome. Last years Hunger Games brought us the greatest love story of our time. Two young people against all odds chose to die, rather than to lose each other. As a nation we shared their agony. But we had so little time to revel in their joy. And on that note, let's go to district 12 where our stars live! There she is Katniss Everdeen. The girl on fire!" Cesar announces, hosting his show in the capitol while some robots are filming Katniss in the victors' village.

"And there he is Hak, the Thunderbeast." Cesar says when Hak steps out of Haymitch's house. The two walk over to each other and Katniss pretends to slip in the snow, falling into Hak's arms.

"Oh oh, trouble in paradise. I hope she's alright." Cesar says but Katniss instead of answering pulls herself up by Hak's shoulders and catches him in a deep kiss.

"Uhm. Anyone at home? Should we come back later?" Cesar asks them when the kiss continue on for a while.

"Sorry Cesar." Katniss apologies, releasing Hak and standing next to him, leaning herself against his shoulder.

"That's alright, it's your day. So how's it going?" Cesar asks.

"Good." Hak says with a nod.

"That's it? Just good? Don't keep us on our seats' edges. Hak give us some detail." Cesar tells him.

"Cesar, a man of world like you should know that a gentleman never kisses and tells." Hak replies with a small smile.

"Oh you, thanks to the generosity of the Capitol we've never been closer." Katniss says into the cameras with a wide smile.

"One jump away to be exact." Hak says.

"Ah, hahaha, your jumps maybe. Fantastic, we'll be checking in with you throughout the victory tour." Cesar tells them and the cameras shut off.

"That was nice acting." Katniss compliments him.

"I don't have to act." He tells her with a almost unnoticeable smile and then goes back to Haymitch's house.

"OK people we're on a schedule, the train awaits." Effie tells her team and the camera crew while Katniss stands in the middle of victors village, looking after Hak with guilt.

* * *

"Now the schedule is a bit bah, but 12 days, 12 districts. We go around each district, greet your fans and then wrap it up at the capitol." Effie tells Haymitch, Cinna, Katniss and Hak while they are in the food cart having lunch.

"All you need to do is give a few speeches, wave to the crowds and enjoy the time in the spotlights. Enjoy it, you've earned it." Effie tells them.

"What did you say?" Katniss asks disbelieving.

"I said you should enjoy it, you've earned it." Effie replies, taking a seat.

"By killing people." Katniss says looking at Effie with contempt.

Katniss then leaves the table and goes to the very back of the train, watching the scenery they're passing on the train.

"I'm really not in a mood for a lecture Haymitch, I'll apologize to her later." Katniss says, still looking out of the big windows.

"I must've spend too much time living with him if I start to smell like booze." Hak tells her, trying to lighten the mood.

"You don't have to apologize to anybody. I should apologize to you. I've been trying to convince you of my feelings for you and I only complicated it, I should've tried to be your friend again instead." Ha k tells her, sitting down across from her with a sigh.

"I've never been good at friends." Katniss tells him, showing her insecurity.

"It does help when you know the person. I don't really know what's been going on in your life for the last 4 years. I only know what I saw in the woods." He tells her.

"There isn't much to know." She tells him.

"Catnip, look the way this friend things work is you have to open up to the person. Tell them the deep stuff."

"Like what?" She asks doubtful.

"Like what is your favorite color?" He asks.

"Oh, you've stepped over the line." She says jokingly.

"Haha, what is it?" He asks, looking at her until she faces him.

"Green." She answers after a moment of hesitation.

"What's yours?" She asks.

"Blue." Hak tells her.

"Like haymitch's booze?" Katniss asks with a smirk.

"No, like the sky on a calm, cloudless day." Hak tells her.

They then pass into a tunnel and Katniss looks out of the window with surprise when a red mocking jay is drawn on the tunnels' walls in the same way her pin looks.

"Did you see that?" She asks.

"What?" He asks and looks outside, but they already passed the wall they went through and instead see a dozen peacekeeper cars driving alongside the train.

On the way to the podium where they have to hold their speeches Effie hands them a card with the speech they should hold as a sign of victor and a short ulugy for who passed from that district and since 11 is the first one they go to that means Rue.

* * *

When the two step outside they see a huge banner with Rue on it with her family standing under it.

"Thank you." Hak says into the microphone after they were announced.

"We're honored to be here today and to be with the family of the fallen tribute." Hak reads from the card and then puts them away.

"Rue fought with both honor and dignity and I can assure the family that she did not suffer." Hak tells them.

"Killer!" A woman screams from the crowd and throws a rock at him.

A few people follow her example and Hak takes the projectiles without showing any signs that it bothers him.

"Rue helped me protect who is the world to me and for that I want to thank her and to pay our condolences to her family." Hak continues during the hail of rocks, with the peacekeepers marching into the crowd to arrest the offending people.

Katniss who is a to Hak's right, one step behind him looks at the scene with shock, shocked that Hak takes the treatment as he does.

She doesn't see one Rock flying towards her and flinches only in the last second, thinking it'll it her but Hak catches it and throws it at the offending party, making him fall to the floor with a small trail of blood running down his head.

"I think I said all I wanted to say." Hak says, stepping away, waiting for Katniss, who is again looking at Rue's face on the display and takes the microphone.

"I just wanted to say that I did know Rue, she was my friend. I see her in the flowers that grow by my house. I hear her when the mocking jays sing. She was too young. Too gentle, I'm sorry." Katniss says, causing an old man to raise his hand in a tree finger salute, whistling the mocking jay tune with the crowd following his example. The peacekeepers, who had by that point finished removing the troublemakers from Hak's speech take out their batons and march into the crowd, taking the old man who whistled and execute him on the podium while Hak and Katniss are being led, or in Katniss case dragged away.

Once the peacekeepers shoot the man Katniss freaks out completely and tries to storm out of the building they brought them to, only for Hak to strongly embrace her, not letting her go.

"Both of you, come with me!" Haymitch tells them, making Hak follow him with Katniss.

"You two had a simple task." Haymitch tells them disappointed.

"I didn't want for anyone to get killed, he has to know that." Katniss says in tears, shocked at what happened.

"Who has to know what?" Haymitch asks confused.

"Snow, he came to see me telling me to stop a rebellion. He says that people don't believe our love story." Katniss explains to Hak and Haymitch.

"So he wants you to make people believe it." Haymitch says.

"You could've told me." Hak says, looking at her hurt that she left him in the dark.

"I didn't know what to do. He threatened to kill my family." She replies.

"What about them? Who protects them? Katniss, what were you thinking?" Haymitch interferes, pointing out a window.

"I was thinking about Rue. Haymitch please, just help us make it through this trip." Katniss begs him.

"This trip? Girl wake up, this trip doesn't end. You never get off this train. You two are mentors now. Every year they are going to drag you out and talk about your romance, every year your private life becomes theirs. From now on you are supposed to be a distraction so people forget what real problems are." Haymitch tells her.

"So what do we do?" Hak asks him.

"You're going to smile. You're going to read the cards that Effie gives you and you're going to live happily ever after. Can you do that?" Haymitch tells them, making Katniss nod at him speechlessly.

"Come here." Her mentor tells her, hugging her.

* * *

An hour later the group is back on the train which continues to the next district.

"Hak, I wanted to see if you're alright." Katniss says, walking into his compartment, right across from hers and sees him look at himself in the mirror, removing some bits of rock which managed to pierce into his skin.

"Katniss." He says surprised and tries to hide his wounds from her.

"Hak. Sit down." She orders him, going to his bathroom where she collects a pot with hot water and a towel.

"Why didn't you say anything?" She asks him, sitting down on a chair next to his bed while she places the equipment on his small table.

"It's nothing." He says.

"It's not nothing. You are hurt. Why did you even take all that? I know you could've dodged all of it." She asks him.

"It felt like I deserved it." Hak replies, looking at his hands lost in thought.

"Because you took Rue's life?" Katniss asks.

"No, actually that is the one death I don't feel responsible for." Hak tells her.

"But I killed the female contester from 4 years ago as well. The woman who started the riot, she was her mother I think.

"You were a 12-year-old boy. Even now we're just following the Capitols rules, trying to survive." Katniss tells him, running the in water dipped cloth over his back to wash away the dried smears of blood.

"Thank you." Hak says gratefully while Katniss tenderly removes the few shards of rock which embedded itself into his skin.

"There, all done." She tells him, throwing the last piece into the bowl along with the towel.

"How are you after what happened today?" He asks her, putting on his shirt.

"I'm OK I think, still shook up by what they did to that old man. And I'm worried about my sister and my mom." She tells him.

"They'll be alright." Hak tells her.

"Right, Gale is with them." Katniss says, remembering making the boy promise to look after her family.

"Right, Gale." Hak says saddened.

"What?" She asks picking up on the tone.

"Look I know I'm opening a can of worms with this, but why didn't you tell me that you two…" Hak asks.

"We what?" Katniss questions.

"You kissed. Snow showed me a bizzarro picture of you two kissing in wedding attire, I know that part is fake, but I recognized the background, meaning you did kiss." Hak says.

"Hak…" She says surprised.

"You know what, just forget I mentioned it. I know now what's at stake for you. I'll do my best to make everyone believe what Snow wants them to." Hak tells her, leaving his room, heading for the food wagon where Haymitch is already drinking.

"Mind if I join you?" Hak asks, slumping down next to the blonde man.

"What happened to you? You look like you're a kicked puppy." Haymitch asks him surprised, since this is the first time Hak asked for a drink, despite living with him for 3 months.

"Can I have a drink or not?" Hak asks with a sigh and then gets handed a glass with booze.

"Thanks." He accepts it, downing it in one go.

"So, want to tell me what happened? Before it bites us in the ass in the next district." Haymitch asks.

"I shouldn't tell you." Hak says after contemplating wether to talk to him or not.

"So I'll ask Katniss then." Haymitch says with a sigh.

"She doesn't have to tell you either, just let her know that. It's her personal business." Hak replies, reaching for another swig of booze before he decides to leave it be.

"Man those two are nothing but trouble." Haymitch sighs and downs his glass.

Later that night Haymitch asks Katniss what was going on and she fills him in.

"So you're in love with Gale, no wonder the kid needed a drink." Haymitch says.

"What? No, Gale just kissed me out of nowhere." Katniss says.

"Well isn't that great news? Tell the kid and he'll be ecstatic." Haymitch suggests.

"That's exactly why I can`t tell him that I don't have feelings for Gale." Katniss says.

"You lost me there." Haymitch tells her annoyed.

"If I tell him that I don't see Gale that way, that would mean that I do love him instead." Katniss says.

"So?" Haymitch asks confused.

"I don't know if I do love him yet and it wouldn't be fair to let him believe otherwise when he already risks everything by pretending." She explains.

"Ugh, I need a drink." Haymitch groans and leaves her compartment, going back to his booze.

* * *

The two then continue on their tour, trying to convince the people of Panem of their love for one another. After the first four districts Katniss's nightmares have become more vivid and she wakes up screaming that night.

"Katniss?" Hak says worried for her, entering her compartment with his trophy-glaive at the ready.

"It was just a dream, I'm sorry." She apologizes, trying to catch her breath.

"It's OK. I get them too." Hak tells her and moves to leave.

"Hak. Will you stay with me?" She requests, looking at him hopefully.

"Yeah, I'm here. Whenever you need me." He tells her, climbing up to her bed, lying down next to her with her head on his shoulder.

The two continue this sleeping arrangement for the rest of their tour with Katniss having peaceful sleeps for the first time since their victory.

When they reach the last district on their tour the crowd is still riled up, worrying the group about what Snow will do.

"Snow is watching us. If he wants you to pacify the districts I promise you he's not happy. Instead of being in love you two sound as if you're reciting from a drilling manual." Haymitch tells them.

"Effie writes them." Hak says.

"Tell that to president Snow when you see him two days from now." Haymitch shoots back.

"We're open to suggestions." Hak says.

"We could get married." Katniss says.

"That's not helping." Haymitch tells her, thinking she is joking.

"I'm serious. If like you said we're going to be on this train forever it'll happen eventually." Katniss replies.

"It does make a statement, I'll give you that." Haymitch says amused.

"Sure, go ahead." Hak tells them, leaving their wagon and goes to his room where he collects his weapon. After he got it he goes onto the trains roof and goes through Katas with his glaive, hoping they'll calm him down.

"Kid." Haymitch says guiltily as he watches him leave their compartment.

"What?" Katniss asks, thinking he means her.

"Nothing. We should do it. I'm sure Cesar will be excited." Haymitch tells her.

Two two then look to the other wagon where they hear Effie berating someone and see Hak standing ontop of their train, training with his weapon of choice.

"What is he doing? He'll kill himself." Katniss asks shocked.

"Leave him be, just be glad he doesn't like liquor." Haymitch tells her, taking a big gulp from his glass.

"The presidential palace. The party of the year. Eyes bright, chins up and smile. I was talking to the both of you. Now breathe it all in children, this is all for you." Effie tells the two champions as they approach the huge mansion which is decorated.

Effie then leads the two through the crowd which applauds for them and greats a few guests herself.

Hak, who was forced to wear a tux enters the main hall with Katniss in a beautiful evening dress on his arm.

"Here try these." A couple offers Hak some food at the party.

"Thanks, I'm full." He tells them.

"Take this." The man then offers him a drink.

"No thanks, I remember those from last year." He replies feigning a laugh.

"How about a dance?" He asks Katniss, leading her to the dancefloor, where they start to dance to the music until Effie interrupts them.

"Katniss, Hak. This is Plutarch Heavensbee. The next Head Game Maker." Effie says introducing them to the man.

"May I." Plutarch asks Hak, pointing at Katniss and takes his place in the dance.

"So how'd you like the party?" Plutarch asks her.

"it's a little overwhelming." She replies.

"If you abandon your good judgement it still can be fun." He tells her.

"So are you having fun?" Katniss asks him.

"I'm head Game Maker. Having fun is my job, although head Game Maker has never been the safest of jobs, case and point Seneca Crane." He answers.

"Then why are you here?" Katniss asks.

"Same reason as you, I volunteered." He says.

"Why?" She questions.

"Ambition. And a chance to make the games mean something." He explains.

"The games don't mean anything. They're just meant to scare us." Katniss tells him.

"Well, maybe it was you who inspired me to come back." He says.

The president then makes his appearance and they split up so Katniss can rejoin Hak's side.

"Tonight, on this the last day of our tour I want to welcome our two victors. Two young people, who embody our ideals of strict and valor. And I personally want to congratulate them on the announcement of their engagement. Your love has inspired us and I know it will go on inspiring us every day for as long as you may live." Snow says, raising his glass.

After the tour finished the districts are still rioting and Snow considers killing Katniss but the head Game Maker suggests a different method. They should take away everything from the districts people, show public flogging and executions on the one hand and on the other hand they'll show everything about Katniss's glamorous wedding.

* * *

After they arrive back in district 12 Katniss makes her way to Gale to tell him that she is grateful for his friendship but doesn't feel the same way as he.

While they're talking they see a convoy of peacekeepers drive by them into their town.

Once they arrive in town the peacekeepers start to put up a pillar for flogging and loot the people's homes.

Gale sees the commander attacking an old lady and knocks him off of her. He is the first one taken to the pillar for the flogging.

Hak and Haymitch make their way to the town square after they heard a shot go off.

Katniss treats someone's wound when she hears a commotion coming from the square and arrives only to see the commander whipping at Gale.

"No, no. Stop." She says running over and moving between the two, only for the commander to punch her across the face.

"Katniss, just go." Gale tells her but she instead stands before Gale, shielding him.

"Move." The commander orders her. When Katniss doesn't flinch he takes out his gun, aiming at her. Hak and Haymitch arrive and Hak immediately storms forward, slicing the gun in half, holding his glaive at the commanders neck, taking him as hostage with the other peacekeepers aiming their guns at him.

"Hey, hey hey. Everyone calm down. Nobody has to get hurt." Haymitch yells.

"Commander you're new here. Trust me I'm trying to help you. You recognize them? Katniss Everdeen and Hak, darlings of the capitol?" Haymitch asks.

"She interfered with a peacekeeper and he attacked me." The commander says.

"I never said she was smart and he's just a wild beast, still trapped in the Hunger Games. After his second time there." Haymitch apologizes for them while Hak, who released the commander when Haymitch arrived looks at him like he's pray, intimidating the man while he has his glaive standing at his side, shielding Katniss.

"Look are you sure Snow wants three dead victors here and a whole platoon of peacekeepers? Cause that's what you're looking at. If you continue to threaten her, he might snap and kill everyone civilians, peacekeepers. Heck even the children aren't safe from that beast." Haymitch tells her Commander, playing Hak of as a bloodthirsty monster.

"If you tell your men to stand down, he will behave, won't you?" Haymitch asks Hak, winking at him.

Hak only nods while putting his glaive away.

"OK, but next time It's the firing squad. Now, clear the square!" The commander orders them and then informs the citizens that they are under curfew and everyone out at dark will get shot on sight while they are clearing up the square.

* * *

Katniss, Haymitch and Hak then bring Gale over to Katniss's house, or more exactly Hak brings him over, carrying him over his shoulders.

"It's Gale." Katniss tells her family when the three arrive. They clear the table and Hak puts Gale down on it as gently as he can.

"Your eye doesn't need stitches." Prim tells her sister, examining her.

"He needs a snowcone." Katniss's mother says, inspecting the wounded teen.

"It was peacekeepers, well they weren't exactly peaceful." Haymitch explains.

"Hak, get the snow. I'll grind the herbs." Prim tells Hak, who then leaves to fetch snow from outside.

Katniss's mother disinfects the wound with alcohol and Gale starts to scream in pain.

"What's that, it's hurting him." Katniss asks concerned.

"He needs morphine." Her mother says and Prim gives him a shot of it after her mother told her how much to use.

The family then treats Gale to the best of their abilities, given what little medical resources they have and he is resting on the table with herbs and snow on his wounds, which get covered with a cloth to keep them in place and reduce infection.

* * *

That night Katniss is watching over Gale, who she thinks is still knocked out. Looking at his relaxed face she leans over and kisses him, causing him to show he's awake when he looks at her.

Unknown to the two Hak arrived at the house the same time and was looking through the window to make sure he doesn't wake anyone.

"Hey Katniss, I thought you didn't like me." Gale greets her.

"I don't, I just had to check." She tells him.

At that point Hak leaves, going to let of steam in the woods instead of coming in.

The next morning Haymitch comes over.

"Hey, have you seen our glaive-wielder? He went to go check on you and I haven't seen him since." Haymitch asks Katniss, waking her.

"No, I didn't see him." Katniss replies.

"Can you stay with him while I get more snow?" She asks, grabbing her coat and go outside to fetch the snow. While she's outside Prim goes outside to help her. She tells her sister that Katniss should do what she feels is right and that both she and their mother stand behind her 100% and don't need protection.

* * *

|a week later|

Hak stayed in his late fathers' hut for the week, not showing himself to anyone.

That day the president is holding a speech about the upcoming Hunger Games and informs everyone that since it's a quarter quell they are having one tribute of every districts' champions pool drafted, meaning both Katniss and Haymitch will have to go to the 75th Hunger Games.

After seeing this Hak immediately leaves the woods, heading straight for Katniss's mentor, asking him if he can think of any way to safe Katniss from this, but Haymitch doesn't have any idea on how to safe them from their fate.

After hearing the announcement Katniss flees into the woods, crying by herself and fearing what is about to come. When she sees a masked person wander through the woods, thinking she's just imagining it she remembers that Hak might have to be a tribute as well, so she leaves heading for Haymitch's house. When she enters around evening, she sees Haymitch sitting on a chair, drowning himself in a bottle.

"Oh, there she is. You finally did the math huh? So you've come to ask me to sway people in 11?" Haymitch asks her.

"I'm here to drink." Katniss tells him, taking a swig from his bottle.

"What does it say, that Hak was here 4 hours ago begging me to think of something to save your life and you only show up now?" Haymitch asks her.

"It means we have to stop him from being drafted." Katniss tells him.

"You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve that boy." Haymitch tells her disappointed.

"Come on, no one decent ever wins the games." Katniss shoots back.

"No one ever wins the game, there are only surivors." Haymitch reminds her.

"We have to do whatever it takes to safe him." Katniss says.

"Good luck with that. He already told me he'll volunteer and there shouldn't be a problem, since everyone in his district hates him." Haymitch tells her.

"Is he upstairs? Maybe I can talk him out of it." Katniss asks, looking up his stairs.

"Girl, he hasn't stayed here since that day on the square. And good luck talking him out of it, you're the only reason he does anything nowadays, since you're the only one left who at least was supposed to care about him, which is doubtful if you haven't noticed his absence in over a week." Haymitch tells her.

"Why would he leave then?" Katniss asks confused.

"I don't know but since he went over to check on things when your miner boyfriend was at your place I'd figure it has something to do with that." Haymitch tells her, taking another swig.

At the mention of Gale Katniss figures out that he could've seen her kiss him again.

"Oh, hit the nail on the head did I? What was it this time? Were the two of you screwing each other? Must've been something serious to send our fearless friend running."

* * *

The next day both Katniss and Haymitch are being led to the townsquare where Effie drafts their names, after which they immediately get brought onto the train.

When they get on the train they see Hak already waiting for them.

"What took you guys so long? There were only two to chose from afterall." Hak asks them laughing bitterly.

"How are you here?" Katniss asks him, feeling relief wash over her at seeing her friend from the 11th district and gives him a hug, which he barely replies.

"I pulled some strings and since Snow wants me dead as well, they were happy to accept, because otherwise one of the other 2 male victors could've been chosen, my condition was this." Hak explains, pointing at the seats on the train for them to join him.

"Okay, first things first, I've had a thought. Katniss has her gold Mockinjay pin, I have my hair. I'm going to give you two boys something gold." Effie tells the three.

"Don't I already have my glaive?" Hak asks, pulling out the weapon from behind his seat.

"No, you won't, not in the arena." Effie protests.

"Alright, do your worst." Hak tells her holding his arms up in surrender.

"Why is that we all nee something gold?" Haymitch inquires.

"As a token, to show the others we're a team." Effie explains starting to tear up.

* * *

|In the new training center|

"I want you guys to forget everything you think you know about the games." Haymitch tells Hak and Katniss.

"Last year was childs play. This year we're all dealing with experienced killers." Haymitch tells them.

"That means what?" Hak asks him somewhat bored, since he knows at least some of the other victors.

"That means we'll need allies." Haymitch informs them, looking at Katniss in particular.

"No." Katniss replies disapproving.

"Look, most of these people know each other, they've been friends for years. If we have to we'll do it your way but if we go in alone their first move will be to hunt us down all three of us." Haymitch tells them.

"How can anyone even trust one another in the arena?" Katniss questions doubtfully.

"It's not about trust but about staying alive. It's actually really simple, everyone brings something to the table to help the group survive.

Haymitch then gives them a rundown of who their competition will be.

"Alright, nice slideshow. I'm gonna head down a level and try not to get killed by my fellow district champion." Hak tells them, waving goodbye as he makes his way to the elevator.

"Hak! Wait. I need to talk to you." Katniss tells him, trying to stop him.

"Tomorrow. I still need to appear on the 11th chariot. After that, I'm all yours." Hak tells her, ruffling his hair annoyed.

* * *

|The next day|

Katniss is already at the chariot waiting for Haymitch.

"Katniss. Do you want a sugarcube?" Finnick, the champion from the 4th district offers.

"No thanks, but I would like to borrow that outfit someday." She tells him, seeing him dressed in a tarzan-like costume.

"You look pretty terrifying in that get up, what happened to those dresses?" Finnick asks.

"Finnick, mind leaving my fiancée alone or do you want me to show you exactly how I beat your record for youngest winner?" Hak asks the man, arriving in a get up which shocks Katniss slightly, since he's wearing his usual blue robe, his glaive and has his animal mask on his face, which has been painted to look even more fierce.

"Sorry, I was just being polite." Finnick says excusing himself.

"You look good Katniss." Hak tells her, looking at her dress.

"Thanks, wait did he just call me Katniss?" Katniss asks Haymitch who just arrived and walked past Hak, patting his back.

"Yes. That is your name." Haymitch tells her, looking at the younger girl with confusion.

"The ceremony then starts with Cinna wishing her good luck, handing her a button to press which will light their clothes on fire.

The chariots all ride down a long road until they land in a big circle in front of the presidents' podium.

Just before they reach the circle part Hak, stretches his arm out of his chariot and starts to spin his glaive at high speeds, making it hum dangerously while lightning crackles around the spinning weapon of death. When his chariot makes the turn he throws the weapon into the floor, making a bolt of lightning hit the entry point, scorching the ground and making the crowd cheer loudly, even more so when at the same moment Katniss lights hers and Haymitch's clothes on fire.

After everyone gets of their chariots Katniss insists they wait for Hak, who makes his way over to the two with not the woman from his district but the contester from the 7th district.

"You guys look amazing." Johanna says, seeing the black get ups from the two 12th district contestants.

"Thank you." Katniss says and the group steps into the elevator.

"My stylist is such an idiot, district 7. Lumber, trees. Ugh, I'd just love to put my axe in her face." Johanna says, taking off her accessories.

"You haven't changed much have you?" Hak asks her, having met her at some events when he first won the 70th Games.

"No, why should I? I am delightful. Can you unzip?" Johanna replies, offering the back of her dress to Hak.

"Sure." Hak replies, opening the back of her dress for her with Katniss looking at him incredulously.

Johanna then starts to strip until she's in her birthday suit with Hak, only looking her in the face with a bored expression, knowing her ticks.

"Thanks, let's do it again sometime." Johanna tells them leaving the elevator on her floor with the dress remaining in the elevator.

"And you know her?" Katniss asks, looking at Hak disapprovingly.

"We met when I won the 70th Hunger Games. If you can see past her attitude problem she is actually a skilled fighter." Hak replies.

"Sure." Katniss says unconvinced.

"Whatever, let's get in our training suits and head to the training area." Haymitch tells them.

"But Hak and I still need to talk." Katniss says trying to stop Haymitch from rushing them on, feeling how tense her relationship with Hak is at the moment, fearing he may leave them for another team.

"Figure out your relationship problems on your own time tonight. Right now we need to make impressions." Haymitch tells them.

* * *

A couple of minutes later the three enter the training area.

"Remember today is about making alliances." Haymitch reminds them.

Katniss walks through the training areas, watching the first two districts fighters train their weapon skills already and she makes her way over to the two from district three.

While Katniss leaves to befriend the science team Haymitch approaches Finnick to recruit him to their band while Hak gets send to talk to Johanna by Haymitch.

"Soo, long time no see huh?" Hak asks Johanna.

"If you don't count a couple minutes ago, sure." She replies, throwing him a training dagger while she uses a training axe.

"Nah, I think we saw a little too much of you." Hak replies.

"Oh, trouble with your girlfriend? Oh excuse me. Fiancée?" Johanna asks him.

"Something like that." Hak replies, looking at Katniss, who coincidentially also looks at him but quickly turns back to the district 3 tribute she was talking to.

"Sorry, maybe you should shag one out. That helped back when I had a boyfriend before the Games." Johanna suggests.

"I'll take it into consideration." Hak laughs. The two then get ready to spar.

Johanna dashes at him quickly, swinging at him full force, at a low angle. Hak simply blocks the attack with his small wooden dagger, surprising Johanna who gets a hungry grin and starts to wildly attack Hak, who easily blocks her attacks.

"So, you know blondie asked me and my girl to see if we can sway some people on our side, you interested?" Hak asks Johanna casually while blocking her strikes.

"Fuck you." She yells frustrated.

"Now that's not nice." Hak says, going on offense and ducking under her last swing, wrapping his arms around her from behind so he has her in a restraining hold with his dagger at her throat.

"Is being nice a requirement for being on Team birdy-slut?" Johanna asks, trying to push his buttons.

"You'd be wise to apologize in the next 3 seconds." Hak tells her, holding her up with one hand, choking her.

"Hah, I like you. Sure, I'm sorry. I just had to see for myself if your guys' story is true about being madly in love." Johana tells him with him releasing his hold on her after she apologized.

"You'd better not try that again." He warns her.

"Noted. And sure, I'm on board." Johanna says.

"That's actually not my decision. I was only supposed to see who'd bite." Hak informs her, walking off the platform and making his way over to Katniss, who shows the old lady from the 4th district how to use a bow, by blazing through a bow shooting course.

Once she's done Hak says "Nice work. Let me show those guys again, in case they missed something." Entering the combat simulation with a glaive while most of the tributes watch from outside.

Hak then quickly breezes through the course, not taking one step from his spot.

* * *

That evening after the training session Haymitch arrives in their apartment.

"Good news. At least half the tributes want to be on your team. You have your pick of the litter." Haymitch tells her.

"I want Wiress and Beady." Katniss tells him.

"OK, good who else?" Haymitch questions.

"Mags." Katniss tells them, meaning the old woman who showed her how to make a fishing hook, making Haymitch look away with disbelieve while Hak watches this from the sidelines, already having known Katniss would pick her.

"OK fine, then nobody." Katniss tells Haymitch.

"I'll tell them you're still making up your mind." Haymitch replies, leaving to inform them.

"OK, I'll head to sleep now." Hak says, already at his rooms door and closing it.

"Hak." Katniss says, getting up from the couch and following him to his room.

"Hak. We still need to talk." Katniss says, sliding open the door.

"Why? What is there to talk about?" Hak asks the hurt evident in his voice.

"I figured out why you left Haymitch's house." She says.

"Good, then case closed. You don't have to pretend in front of me anymore." He says, lying down on the oversized bed, looking at the ceiling.

"No case is not closed." She tells him, making her way over to him, sitting down against his headrest on the other half of the bed.

"What do you want Katniss?" Hak asks exhausted.

"I want you to listen to what I have to say or you'll have to look me in the eye and tell me that you don't love me anymore." She tells him.

Hak looks at her briefly and then turns to his side, his back facing her.

"What is it then?" He asks her.

"Hak, look at me. The kiss with Gale was a mistake. I was scared I was going to lose him and after Haymitch described you as a monster I was confused. Before we went on that trip every time I saw you I was back in the Games. During the trip I saw that the reason for that was because I didn't talk to you, I only saw you and ran away. That was incredibly stupid and horrible of me and I can live with you hating me for thinking of you like that but I want you to know that there is only one man I love and that is you." Katniss tells him.

"And how should I know if this is real or just preparation for the games?" Hak asks her.

"You will just have to believe in me." She tells him, leaving his room.

"Ugh, just when I think I might get used to being just friends she comes and drops this bomb on me." Hak grunts after she's gone. After a couple more minutes of straightening out his head he leaves his room and struts right into hers where she is changing into her pjs.

"Hak." She says surprised, not having heard him come in because she was also deep in thought, having figured she might be too late with her confession.

"Katniss, I can't promise you that I have forgiven you completely jet, seeing you kiss Gale hurt since you didn't even consider being with me for 3 months. But I cannot deny that I am madly, head over heels in love with you." Hak tells her, making his way over to her while her back is turned to him due to her being topless.

He takes off his shirt and drapes it over her much smaller form, making the girl turn around with tears in her eyes.

"Let me hear you say my name." Katniss tells him, looking deep into her eyes.

"Catnip." He says lovingly, causing her to throw herself against his chest, hugging him tightly.

"You have no idea how much I missed hearing that for the last weeks." She tells him.

"I thought you hated that name." He chuckles, hugging her back.

"Not when you say it." She tells him and throws her arms around his neck, pulling him in for a passionate kiss.

"Glad to see you finally gotten to your senses Katniss and bagged him. Keep it down though you two, some people want to sleep now." Haymitch tells them before entering his room, having seen the teens hug and kiss through the open door.

Hak quickly goes over to the door, shutting it. He then makes his way over to her bed, lying down next to her with both bursting out in quiet laughter.

"That was soo awkward." Katniss says giggling.

"You're telling me? I live with him." Hak reminds her.

"Say Hak, before… You and Johanna?" Katniss asks him, looking at him shyly.

"Catnip, there is no one else for me other than you. I actually almost killed her when she called you birdie-slut to see if we love each other.

"I really don't like her." Katniss says annoyed.

"Why? Cause she stripped in front of us? Are you jealous?" Hak asks, poking Katniss's side.

"Yes I am, so what are you going to do about it?" She asks with a smirk.

"Does this help?" Hak asks, kissing her gently.

"Not yet." Katniss replies.

"How about this?" Hak asks, sitting up with her in his lap and kiss and bite at her neck while he holds her tight.

"Maybe." Katniss says with a laugh in between gasps.

When Hak lets his hand slide down to her entrance however she stops him, saying "I'm not ready yet Hak and I don't want my first time to be anywhere near the capitol." She informs him.

"OK, let's get some sleep then." Hak says agreeing and lies down next to her with her curling into his side, resting her head over his heart.

"You know something I forgot to tell you." Katniss says after the lights are turned off.

"What?" He asks curious.

"The first time I was able to sleep without nightmares was when we slept like this in the train." She tells him, hugging him.

"That was when I realized that it's not you what makes me remember the Hunger Games and scares me but it's being apart from you." She says, making him smile and kiss her on top of her head.

* * *

AN: pls follow and review ^^


	4. Chapter 4

The contesters' are all sitting in a room, waiting for their individual assessment to gather sponsors.

When Haymitch gets called into the training room to present his skills Hak enters the waiting area again.

"Hak, what happened?" Katniss asks him, seeing him look at her worried.

"I'm sorry, I destroyed it but they just created another over and over." Hak tells her before he gets lead out of the waiting room.

After Haymitch it's Katniss's turn, being the last tribute to show her skills and she looks around when she enters the room seeing a lot of damage done to the floor and walls, evidently caused by Hak if the broken Glaives and deep cuts into the stone are anything to go by.

Katniss approaches the sponsors and game master and looks down on one of the sole remaining undamaged spots on the floor, seeing a drawing of Rue lying dead in the forest surrounded by flowers, causing Katniss to have tears flowing out of her eyes.

"Mrs. Everdeeen. You have ten minutes to present your chosen skill." Heavensbee, the game master announces making Katniss glare at him with watery eyes. She wordlessly gathers some equipment and paint, decorating a training dummy with the features of the late game master and writing his name on the dummies chest before she hangs the dummy over a beam, curtsying to the observers while they gasp at her audacity.

* * *

The next day Cesar is interviewing the contestants for the last time before they leave to the arena.

All of the contestants hold sad speeches, hoping to sway the crowd to shut down the games with their sob stories.

Katniss who had to put on her wedding dress moves to the back of the stage where she has to wait for her appearance after Hak's and sees Johanna waiting back there as well after she had a rage fit and was removed from stage.

"really? A wedding dress?" Johanna asks Katniss with disappointment.

"Snow made me wear it." Katniss informs her, not happy about it either.

"Make him pay for it." Johanna tells her before she leaves to join the other awaiting champions on the top of the stage.

"And here we have the first victor of last years Hunger Games, Hak the Thunderbeast!" Cesar announces for the crowd as Hak enters the stage, dressed in his trademark kimono.

"Hak, as we can see you've kept your sense of style." Cesar tells him.

"Yes, well I thought it'd be appropriate since I'm wearing out of clothes to wear, this being my third time competing and all." Hak says bitter-sweet.

"Good one kid, that packed a punch." Haymitch laughs lightly, joining Katniss, with him being dressed in a simple white tux.

"Yes, yes. Too bad you can't get extra credit for past results huh?" Cesar asks jokingly.

"True, but I wouldn't want to carry all the loot anyways." Hak replies.

"Hahaha, Hak as always you never fail to entertain. Any message for the audience?" Cesar asks, extending his microphone over to him.

"Yes. As you all probably can assume I entered for the same reason I entered the last time, to protect the one person who means the world to me. And I am sad to say that we were not allowed to be wed before being drafted." Hak says.

"Oh, that is very sad indeed. We were all excited to see our brave warrior gain his maidens hand in marriage. Thank you Hak." Ceasar says, making Hak go up the stairs to join the other contestants while the crowd boos in disappointment.

"Now for our last district, starting with the other part of the deadly duo Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire!" Cesar announces while Katniss enters the stage, wearing the wedding dress.

"Katniss Everdeen you look fabulous. My my, this is a very big and emotional night for all of us, don't you agree?" Cesar asks her.

"Now now, don't go crying on me Cesar." Katniss tells him.

"I can't be making promises I can't keep." He says quickly.

"You know I wouldn't believe you even if you did." Katniss says sarcastically.

"Haha, I love it. But Katniss on a more serious note, we were all very disappointed as your fiancée pointed out that a certain wedding did not take place. But am I correct in assuming that this is the gown you would have worn on that day?" Cesar says.

"Yes, president snow thought it was a good idea for everyone to see it." Katniss informs him.

"Well president snow was right. I love it, I love it. Will you do us the honor, please?" He requests, making space for Katniss to present her dress.

She steps to the front of the stage and sees Cinna giving her a nod, she then starts to twirl around with the dress catching on fire and turning into a tight black dress with feather design and wings on her shoulders.

She stretches out her arms surprised while the crowd goes nuts.

"That bird design, those feathers it's … it's what was it." Cesar says, having forgotten the word.

"It's a Mocking jay." Katniss tells him, looking at Cinna thankfully.

"Thank you Katniss, and now last but not least we have the deadly duo's mentor, a round of applause everyone for Haymitch Abernathy." Cesar announces.

"Haymitch, this is the first time for us to meet. I am delighted to see that you are in such good shape. Any special message you have for us?" Cesar asks him.

"Yes, but this is not about me. It's about my lovely protegees. I think that it's very sad that not only they have to enter the competition before the wedding but also with a baby on their way." Haymitch says and joins the others on top of the stage.

Once he gets there the competitors all join hands with Haymitch winking at Katniss, a smirk plastered on his face.

When the competitors join hands, raising them up the crowd goes wild demanding they stop the games.

* * *

That night Hak and Katniss are sitting on Katniss's beds edge with her leaning into his shoulder while they await the news.

"You know I thought the baby bomb would have finished them but unfortunately games are still on." Haymitch tells them with Effie having two boxes in her hands as she joins them.

"Presents for the boys." Effie says, handing each a present.

"What is this?" Haymitch asks opening his to find a golden armring in it.

"Your token, remember?" Effie reminds him.

"And for Hak, that pendant we talked about." Effie says with Hak looking at the square pendant on a leather chain.

"Thank you Effie." He says, brushing over the material.

"We're a team, aren't we? And I'm so proud of my victors." She says tearing up, giving each one a hug.

"Haymitch wait." Katniss says going after the man who is about to go to his own room.

"Remember our deal. Do everything possible to keep him alive." She whispers to him as she gives him a hug, getting a nod and a pat on her head in return.

"Kid. Until tomorrow." Haymitch tells Hak, giving him a wave.

The next morning Katniss and Hak lie in her bed with her still curled into his side and his arm around her.

"I don't want to be in there with anyone else. Just you. I'm sorry it took me so long to realize." She tells him.

"You're thinking too much. Just know in your heart I will always be there for you and come back to you. That's all you need to know." He says, hugging her closer to himself and brushing a stand of hair from her face. Only minutes after they get interrupted by a knock on their door.

"See you soon." Hak tells her, kissing her hand one more time before he goes to his room to get ready for the transport.

Once they arrive in district four's special arena Katniss gets helped into her clothes by Cinna with him pinning her special golden pin on her sleeve.

After he's done with this and she is in the tube leading her to the surface She sees a group of peacekeepers enter her hallway and beat Cinna to a pulp with her sorrowfully yelling at them to stop while she's slowly being raised upwards.

* * *

When she and the others get to the top they look around with each tribute standing on a podium in the middle of a lake with 12 stone rows leading to the cornucopia in the middle of the arena.

Katniss loos around frantically, searching for Hak or Haymitch and only sees Haymitch standing somewhere to her left but has no sight of her lover.

"let the 75th Hunger Games begin, may the odds be ever in your favor." An announcer says and starts the countdown.

Once the count reaches 0 Katniss drives into the water, making her way to the closest stone path, arriving on it seconds before Brutus and she runs down to the cornucopia, her sights set on the bow displayed at the building. Looking to the flanks she sees others who will arrive at the same time she does, lucky for her Gloss stumbles once he looks over to her and she fires an arrow at him , cutting his leg once she reaches the bow.

Hearing someone right beside her she sees Finnick look back at her, presenting her Haymitch's accessory.

"Good thing we're allies right?" Finnick says with Katniss aiming an arrow in his face.

"Where did you get that?" She asks.

"Where do you think? Now duck!" He tells her and throws his trident at the tribute who was running up behind Katniss, killing him.

"Don't trust 1 and 2, I'll take this side, you hold them off. I'll go find Hak." Finnick tells her, taking back his trident.

"Katniss, Mags' found him. He's this way." Finnick tells her while Katniss is keeping the brother and sister from the first district at a distance. Katniss takes a dagger and a Glaive before the two make their way to Mags, who is pointing at Hak, who is brawling with another tribute in the water with Haymitch swimming over to them.

Hak tried to climb back up to the platform while kicking away the tribute but he grabs onto his leg and drags him under.

While underwater Hak grabs the oponents arm as he tries to punch Hak, who only smirks devilishly and wraps his arm around the tributes neck, squeezing until the tribute loses strength and stops resisting and Hak twistst his neck.

Haymitch who reached about halfway to the two reappears on the waters surface and turns around, swimming over to Katniss, Mags and Finnick.

"Haymitch, help him!" Katniss shouts worried for Hak until a cannon is shot signaling another tributes death. Katniss sees a body float to the surface and holds her breath in fear until Hak reaches the top and looks around to see which direction to go. Once he sees Katniss and the others he swims over to them.

After assembling their team of four and one old lady they enter the jungle surrounding the lake, running through it with Hak leading the way, Katniss after him and then followed by Finnick who carries Mags on his back and Haymitch watching their rear.

Once they get a fair distance between them and the beach they stop to think of a plan.

"I guess we're not holding hands anymore." Finnick says chuckling when three more booms go off.

"You think that's funny?" Katniss questions.

"Everytime that cannon goes off is music to my ears, I don't care about any of them." Finnick replies.

"Good to hear." Katniss says and retrieves the blade she took, handing it to Haymitch, who nods at her appreciatively.

"Let's keep moving." Haymitch tells them and they make their way through the jungle, keeping their formation with Hak cutting down lianas hanging in their way with his glaive.

Seeing something shimmer just in front of Hak she yells "Hak, No!" But it was too late and the tall teen comes flying at them, repelled by the barrier, knocking the group over and he lands face down on the floor, trying to get up with his Glaive but failing and only manages to point it at Haymitch threateningly croaking "Keep her Safe!" before his heart stops and he remains on the floor unmoving.

"He's not breathing. He's not breathing. Hak!" Katniss says frantically, looking for any vital signs of her boyfriend.

Finnick throws away his trident and rolls Hak on his back, starting to try and resuscitate him with Katniss at Hak's side crying helplessly.

After a few repetitions of the CPR Hak gasps, coming back to life.

"Hak! Hak, oh my god." Katniss says relieved leaning down to him.

"There is a forcefield up there." Hak groans.

"My god, you were dead. You were dead, your heart stopped." Katniss cries still shook to her bones.

"It's all god. It's working now." Hak says hugging the girl who glomps onto him for dear life.

"Can you stand up?" Haymitch asks worried.

"Sure." Hak says, getting up, leaning on his glaive only for Katniss to immediately wrap her arms around him in a death grip while shaking like a leaf.

"It's OK. It's OK. I promised I'd always come back to you." Hak says calmingly into hear ear.

* * *

The group then slowly makes their way around the edge of the jungle with Katniss throwing pebbles against the forcefield to check the perimeter while her other hand is still clung tightly around Hak's free one.

"Hang on." She tells the group and goes over to an extremely big tree. Hak follows her and holds his hands out for her to use as a step. Once she reaches the top of the tree she sees that around the center in the starting point is only a jungle wherever the eye reaches. She looks up and fires an arrow in the sky, where a boom sounds with a rippling effect revealing the reach of the dome.

"The forcefield is a dome and there were no signs of fresh water." Katniss tells them once she made her way back to the ground.

"It's going to get dark soon. We'll be safe here with our backs towards the dome. We'll take turns sleeping. I'll take first watch." Finnick suggests.

"Not a chance." Katniss says.

"That thing I did back there for Hak, is called saving his life. If I wanted to kill either of you I'd have done it by now." Finnick tells her annoyed.

"Why don't you get some rest? I'll take first watch." Katniss tells Hak.

"Kay." Hak agrees and sits down against a tree with his glaive prepped against him at the ready.

"So, how's Hak?" Finnick asks Katniss and Haymitch who are awake.

"OK I think. Just dehydrated as we all are." Katniss replies.

Music then starts playing, showing the dead tributes and Hak wakes up, same as Mags.

"Phew, I needed that." Hak sighs.

"Hey, Catnip, can I have one of your arrows?" hak requests.

"Sure, why?" She says going over to him and sitting down next to him, looking at him curiously.

"Catnip huh?" Finnick says teasingly, only for Hak's glaive to land right in between his spread out fingers in the ground he was leaning on.

"I appreciate you saving my life and all, but there are some bridges you just shouldn't cross. This is one of them." Hak warns him sweetly.

"OK." Finnick says shaking his head at the couple's antics and throws the Glaive back to the teen who catches it with ease.

So, why'd you need an arrow?" Katniss asks.

"Wait." Hak tells her and screws the head off the arrow and hits the rest of the arrow lightly against the tree they are sitting against.

"Good, it's hollow." Hak says excited.

"Why's that good?" Katniss questions.

"Because…" Hak starts to say until Haymitch finishes, "Cause he can make a tap with that." And walks over to the two with Finnick joining, interested.

Hak cuts off the lower third of the tipless arrow and sharpens it on a rock.

"Alright, let's see if it'll hold." Hak says and hammers the construct into the tree carefully with the flat side of his glaive.

The group wait a couple seconds expectantly when water starts to drip from it and they catch some with their mouths' drinking it relieved. Haymitch gets a leaf, filling it with water and gives it to Mags.

Later that night the group hears a thumping 12 times and afterwards lighting strike down on a tree the same number of times.

"Midnight?" Finnick asks.

"Or the number of districts." Haymitch says.

"Well if you aren't going to sleep Katniss I think I'll get some rest then." Finnick says, going to lie down somewhere.

"I'm with him." Haymitch tells her and relaxes to get some rest.

A couple hours later Katniss, who had fallen asleep sometime during the night wakes up, looking around and sees Hak sitting in the stone they used to keep watch.

"Since when are you keeping watch? You should be resting." Katniss asks him, worried about his safety.

"2 hours give or take." He tells her while she rejoins him on the stone.

"You should've woken Haymitch or…." Katniss says, stopping once she sees fog coming towards them from outside the barrier.

"Do you see that?" She asks him, pointing behind him.

"Uhh, yes." Hak says dreadfully. The fog comes through the barrier and Katniss reaches for it, falling from the stone with painful yelps and her hand beet red and full of blisters.

"Run! The fog is poison!" Katniss yells, waking everyone and they start to run downhill with Finnick carrying Mags and fog chasing after the group.

On the way downhill their path gets cut off by fog coming from all around them, leaving them only one path to follow.

Katniss who is running right behind Hak trips on a root and looks back fearfully, the poison already at her legs.

Hak hearing her tumble goes back for her and helps her up, both of them getting a good dose on their backs, causing them to yell out painfully.

As they get up and continue to flee from the poison They hear two screams, one is Finnick, whose arm got caught and the other is Haymitch, whose leg gets hit.

Haymitch manages to run past Hak and Katniss before collapsing on the ground.

"Haymitch, get up!" Katniss shouts desperately but he lies there unmoving. With Katniss and Hak stopping at his side.

Finnick reaches them and Mags gets off his back, giving him a kiss on his forehead while she goes into the fog on her own.

"Finnick we have to go, we have to get out of here!" Katniss tells him as he yells after Mags.

"Right, come on." Finnick agrees and both he and Hak put one arm each over their shoulder as they race through the woods, following after Katniss who leads the way. Katniss helps the two when they come to a slope but the group all get hit by the poison and tumble down the slope with white blisters all over their bodies and them close to passing out.

Hak and Katniss turn around, seeing the fog approaching until it stops like it hit an invisible wall.

"That was close." Hak croaks.

Katniss sees the fog dissipating and crawls over to a puddle, putting her hand in it.

"Argh!" She screams out in pain.

"The water, the water helps." She tells the group and Hak joins her in removing the blisters with the help of the water, grunting in pain while Katniss continues to scream.

The two of them then drag both Finnick and Haymitch over to the small pond and drag them in as well, making them scream and thrash in pain as their wounds dissipate with each one being held down.

The group quickly rearms themselves with the weapons they dropped during the fall and are washing away the remaining small spots on their skin when they are suddenly surrounded by orangutans.

"I'm sorry about Mags." Katniss tells Finnick.

"She was never going to make it." He tells her and nods for both her and Hak to look over to the apes.

"Haymitch, you better come rejoin the bath. Slowly." Hak tells the blonde man, staning up with Finnick and Katniss who readies an arrow. The group stare down the apes and Katniss sees the cornucopia`s reflection not that far from them.

When Haymitch rejoins the group, eyeing he Apes with worry they start to scream at them , baring their fangs while more and more appear.

"Get to the beach." Katniss says, as they are preparing themselves for a fight.

Once the first Ape jumps at Katniss from behind with Hak quickly taking care of it with a strike from his glaive the other orangutans start to attack as well.

Katniss fires arrow after arrow at the attacking apes while everyone else fights them of as well, defending their position while Katniss tries to clear a path for them. Once Katniss manages to clear a path she turns to tell the others to run when an ape jumps at her from her side and pushes her underwater, trying to bite her face off with Katniss using her bow to hold it back by its neck.

Hak hears the splash and decapitates two apes he was fighting before jumping to Katniss and packs the Ape by its head, throwing it off her and onto Finnick's trident, who nods curtly before defending himself against another one. Hak helps Katniss up and the group starts to run for the beach only for the monkeys to follow right behind them, tripping them and separating the group.

Haymitch lands on the floor with his knife at his feet when A orangutan is standing in front of him, screaming at him once and lunges, intending to rip his throat out only for one of the morphlings from district 6 to take the hit by throwing herself in front of the blonde. Haymitch quickly picks up the blade, killing the Ape and says "I'm sorry." To the woman, stabbing her in the heart to give hear a quick death.

"Run, we're almost there!" Haymitch screams.

Katniss is holding back an ape by kicking him away from her while she's on the ground until Hak jumps next to her, cutting the monkey in half and picks her up with one arm while she hugs herself to his front, looking behind him and defending his back with her bow from an jumping ape while he runs with her after Haymitch and Finnick, who is at their side. Once they get to the beach they are relieved and confused to see the orangutans stop from entering the sand as they scream at the group of humans.

"You OK Haymitch?" Hak asks him, once the Apes retreat back to the forest.

"Just brings back bad memories." Haymitch tells him as he cleans the blade in the water.

"She sacrificed herself when no one knew she was even there." Haymitch says while they watch her body getting retrieved by a plane.

"Sacrifice?" Katniss asks.

"Looked like it." Haymitch replies.

* * *

Finnick manages to catch them some fish from the water around the cornucopia and they eat a meal on the beach while the sun rises.

Hak breaks open a clam for Haymitch and sees a pearl in it. He picks it out, wiping it clean on his suit and hands it to Katniss, grinning at her "So you can't say I never gave you anything."

"Thank you." She laughs, accepting the pearl with a smile.

While they are eating their meal they hear something from the very other side of the arena and see a huge floodwave crashing down through the forest to the cornucopia where it breaks and a small ripple goes out all around the beach.

"Someone is here." Hak says hearing something not far from their location.

"Johanna." Finnick says spotting the woman with both tributes from district 3.

"Johanna!" He yells, running out from their cover.

"Finnick!" She shouts back, giving the man a hug.

"I guess we have more allies." Haymitch says, going over to the newcomers.

"Are you OK with this?" Hak asks Katniss, stopping her from going after him.

"I'm not sure, but we don't have much of a choice." She replies, looking at the woman from district 7 wearily before they make their way over to the group while Katniss puts away her loaded arrow.

"We were all the way deep into the jungle where I thought we'd be safe. That's when the rain started. I thought it was water but it turned out to be blood. Hot thick blood coming down and choking us. We were stumbling around, gagging on it blind until blight hit the forcefield. He wasn't much but at least he was from home." Johanna informs them while Wiress repeats tick, tack, tick, tack as if in a trance.

"What's wrong with her?" Katniss asks, looking at wiress.

"She's in shock. Dehydration isn't helping much, do you have freshwater?" Beady asks them while he's washing off the blood covering him.

"Stop it." Johanna finally snaps and pushes Wiress away from her while she was trying to get Johanna's attention.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Katniss yells, shoving away the woman from district 7.

"Hey,I got them out for you!" Wiress yells angrily while Finnick pulls her aside to stop her from attacking Katniss.

"For me, what does she mean?" Katniss asks surprised.

"You did want them as allies." Hak replies with a shrug.

"Come on let's get you cleaned up." Katniss tells the tick, tack mumbling woman, taking her to the water and helping her wash off.

"What does Beady have there?" Katniss asks Johanna who joined them in getting clean.

"Coil? Some kind of wire." Johanna explains.

"Did he get it from the cornucopia?" Katniss questions.

"He took at knife and went back to get it." Johanna answers.

"tick tack, tick tack!" Wiress yells excited making Johanna leave, saying "Have fun with Nuts!"

They look over to the tree where lightning strikes and Katniss hugs Wiress excitedly, saying "You're a genius." As she realizes the whole arena is a clock.

The group go to the cornucopia and Katniss tells them what she realized.

While the group discuss what dangers each sector hold, until they decide that staying clear of which ever is active is the only safe way anyways Wiress sings a song from the edge of the rocky foundation the cornucopia is standing on until she gasps loudly, making everyone look at her, seeing Gloss rip his dagger out of the womans neck, having just killed their companion.

Katniss shoots him in the chest, killing him while Cashmere, his sister runs at her from her side and Johanna pushes Katniss out of harms way, after which Hak throws his glaive at the blonde, hitting her through the chest. He grabs another glaive while Brutus attacks the group from the other direction, throwing a spear at Katniss, which Haymitch blocks and Finnick attacks the bulky man.

Enobaria throws her spear at Finnick, cutting him lightly on his arm and the two tributes from district 2 take cover with Johanna and Katniss running after them while Finnick, Beady and Haymitch are staying behind with Hak making his way to the girls when suddenly the middle part of the arena starts to spin, making everyone fall down and grasp onto the rocks to try and stay on land. Katniss's grip slips and she is about to fall down until Johanna catches her by her wrist and tries to anker them to the ground with her axe, struggling to hold onto the bow wielding girl. Katniss however gets slowly pulled away, sucked in once her feet touch the water. Hak sees her fall off the rotating platform and immediately throws aside his Glaive, jumping after her. He quickly swims to her location with the platform still spinning over their heads. When he gets to Katniss she is swimming back to the top but he stops her while she looks at him panicking, being already out of air. He looks at her, trying to calm her down and puts his lips to hers in a kiss, sharing his oxygen with her while they wait for the spinning to stop, much to their luck the spinning spots seconds after he reaches her. The two hurry to the surface where Hak helps her onto the rocky path in front of them and she starts coughing out water while Johanna makes her way over to her, checking on her.

"Are you OK?" Hak asks Katniss, climbing up next to her and putting his hand on his girlfriends back in concern.

"Let's just get what we need and get off this deathtrap." Johanna tells the group when the three males join them.

* * *

"So besides Brutus and Enobaria, who is left?" Katniss asks as the group gathers.

"No one." Haymitch says, having kept track.

"They are heavily outnumbered now, I doubt they'll attack again. We're safe here on the beach." Finnick says.

"So what do we do? Hunt them down?" Johanna asks, patting her axe.

Katniss then hears her sister scream for help out of the forest and takes off into the woods, screaming her name. When she gets to the source of the noise she sees that it's coming from an jabberjay, an engineered bird producing sounds the person hearing it will recognize as one of their worst fears, in Katniss's case her sister being hurt.

"Katniss!" Finnick shouts, being the first one to catch up to her after Katniss shot the bird imitating her sister.

"Finnick, it's not real." Katniss says chasing after Finnick, who runs into the woods screaming his girlfriend's name.

The two then get swarmed by the birds, which hit them occasionally but in general fly around them making them hear their loved ones suffer around them. They take off back to the beach, only to get stopped by and invisible wall trapping them inside for an hour with Katniss and Finnick holding their eras closed and trying to get through the torture.

"The hours up, the wall is gone. Are you OK?" Johanna asks Finnick, who looks ahead like he's dead inside.

"Katniss, no one hurt Prim. It wasn't real." Hak tells Katniss, who is lying on the floor her hands over her head.

"No one hurt Prim." Hak tells her, brushing over her back calmingly.

"Your fiancée is right, everyone loves your sister. If someone touches her forget the districts, there'd be riots in the capital." Johanna tells her and then curses out snow angrily.

Once they make their way back to the beach they sit in silence for a while, watching Finnick who slumped down in the water.

"Who is Annie?" Katniss asks.

"She's the girl Mags volunteered for." Haymitch tells her.

"Is the the one who went a little…?" Katniss asks.

"Yeah, love is weird." Johanna tells her, looking at Finnick's back.

Beady then interrupts them, informing the group that he has a plan and explains that they should use the lightning strike to electrify the water and everything on the beach after the 10 o'clock wave soaked it with Brutus and Enobaria in it once they left the beach.

"How do we know the wire's not going to burn up?" Johanna asks doubtfully.

"Because I invented it. It won't burn up." Beady replies.

"Well it's better than hunting them down." Johanna agrees.

"Yeah, why not." Katniss says.

"I say we try it." Haymitch agrees.

"I'd be more for the direct approach, but I won't go against the stream on this one." Hak tells them, twirling his glaive around.

"So what can we do to help?" Haymitch asks Beady.

"Keep me alive for the next 6 hours, that'd be extremely helpful." Beady tells them.

* * *

The group then relaxes on the beach until after the wave hit to make their way towards the lightning tree.

"I think we need to go." Katniss says to Hak, with Beady and Johanna sitting together and Finnick twirling around his weapon and Haymitch lying around alone on the beach and both Hak and Katniss sitting next to one another.

"This plan has a high success rate." Hak tells her.

"I think so too, but once the careers are dead we both know what happens next. I don't want to be the one to shoot first." Katniss says worriedly.

"What if they don't either?" Hak asks.

"We'd still end up dead with no one shooting first." Katniss says.

"It worked for us last time." Hak says.

"They won't make the same mistake again." Katniss tells him.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Hak agrees.

"You know there will be only one person walking away from his and it's got to be one of us." She tells him.

"Alright, the careers are still out there, we stay with them till midnight then we go. What about Haymitch?" He asks.

"I don't know, I think we have to be on our own on this." Katniss says, looking at Haymitch intently.

"Katniss, I don't know what kind of deal you tried to make with Haymitch, but I made him promise me something too." Hak tells her, seeing her eyes linger on their mentor.

"If you die and I live, there'd be nothing left for me." Hak tells her, taking off his pendant.

"There is no one else I care about. It's different for you. Your family is waiting for you, needs you." Hak tells her, handing her the necklace one he opens it, revealing a picture of her mother on one side, her sister on the other and a group picture of her, him, Haymitch and Effie the two adults took in secret while both he and Katniss were cuddled together in their sleep.

"You have to live on. For them." Hak tells her.

"What about you?" She replies.

"Nobody needs me. I am damaged goods." He tells her.

"I do, I need you. More than you can imagine." She says, hugging herself close to him and laying him down in the sand with her kissing him fiercely.

Alright lovebirds, time to go!" Haymitch shouts, standing with the rest of their group, waiting for them.

"Here, hold onto this for me." Hak tells her, giving her the pendant.

"Who knows if we somehow get out of this alive I'll want it back, maybe even with some naughty pictures of you." Hak tells her teasingly and helps her off the sand.

"Just make sure you stay alive to look at them." She says, putting the necklace on and giving him a worried look, knowing he won't hesitate to sacrifice himself for her.

* * *

The group makes their way to the tree where beady ties the wire around it multiple times, leaving the drum of wire for a group to take back to the beach.

"You two girls should go now. Unspool it carefully, make sure the entire coil is in the water, then head to the tree in the two o'clock sector." Beady instructs them.

"I'll go with them as a guard." Hak says.

"No, no, no. You are staying to protect me and the tree." Beady tells him.

"I need to be by her side." Hak says, getting angry.

"Hak, calm down. It's going to be OK." Katniss tells him, seeing the looks the rest of the group gives the two.

"I'll meet you in the two o'clock sector." She tells him, giving him one more loving kiss before she disappears with Johanna into the jungle.

Johanna and her are halfway to the beach when the spool stops and someone tugs on it. A moment later the wire is cut and Katniss prepares to fight, readying an arrow while Johanna hits her over the head with the spool and cuts into her arm, causing Katniss to scream out in pain.

"Stay down!" She warns Katniss, smearing her blood around her neck and takes off while Brutus and Enobaria start to chase after her.

Once Katniss recovered from the blow to the head to some degree she sits up and cowers herself under in a hiding spot while she hears Finnick running by just over her head yelling "Johanna, where are you?"

Katniss fears something could have happened to Hak and hurries back to the tree. Once there she sees no one around and only witnesses Beady getting repelled by the forcefield after hitting it with a spear which he wrapped part of the coil around and to the tree, hoping it would zap the energy instead.

Katniss sees this contraption and begins to think, seeing the forcefield weakening where Beady struck it.

Once a cannon booms Katniss shouts "Hak!" worriedly and looks for any sign of her lover. When she sees Finnick rush to her location however she hides herself, readying an arrow and aims at the blonde.

"Katniss, where are you?" He shouts looking around until he spots her through some grass with her arrow aimed at him.

"Katniss. Remember who the real enemy is." Finnick tells her, using the same words Haymitch told her before they entered the arena.

She lowers her bow, realizing what he means and looks upwards upon hearing thunder rumble over her head. She quickly ties wire connected to the tree around an arrow.

"Katniss, get away from that tree." Finnick warns her.

She however stands her ground, aiming to the sky and the moment the lightning hits she releases her arrow, which flies up to the dome and fries the entire system, causing the dome to come down around them while she and Finnick get blown away by the force wave.

Only seconds after the dome starts to come down around them Katniss sees a plane collect her before she passes out, losing the sleeve with her pin along the way.

Around an hour later she awakens in a transport plane with Beady next to her unconscious.

She carefully makes her way to the front of the plane where Haymitch, Finnick and Heavensbee are discussing something about Hak.

When she opens the door the three shut up and stare at her.

"Morning sweetheart." Haymitch tells her, making her attack him with a syringe.

"What are you doing with them?" She asks angrily with Haymitch restraining her against a wall however.

"We're conspiring against the capitol. You see this is why no one lets you make the plans." Haymitch tells her.

"Stop, just listen Katniss." Finnick tells her.

"We couldn't tell you. With Snow watching it was too risky. Better for you to know nothing." Haymitch tells her.

"Where is Hak?" Katniss asks.

"Katniss, you have always been our mission from the beginning. The plan was always to get you out. Half the tributes were in on it. This is the start of a revolution and you're the Mockingjay. We are on our way to district 13 right now." Heavensbee explains.

"13? Doesn't matter, where is Hak?!" Katniss asks.

"He still had his tracker in his arm. Johanna cut yours out." Haymitch tells her.

"Where is he?" Katniss questions.

"In the capitol by my guess, same as Johanna." Haymitch tells her.

"You son of a bitch. You promised me, you promised you'd take him over me! You're a liar." Katniss yells sorrowful, slapping Haymitch across his face angrily before Heavensbee knocks her out with a drug.

* * *

When Katniss wakes up days later Gale is sitting by her side.

"Hey Katniss, it's OK. You were only asleep for a few days." He tells her.

"Gale? Where is Prim?" Katniss asks worried.

"She is alive, so is your mother. I got them out in time." He tells her.

"Got them out?" She asks confused.

"After the games, they started dropping firebombs." Gale tells her.

"We're not in 12?" She asks.

"There is no district 12. It's all gone." Gale informs her.

"Hak! What about Hak?" She asks worriedly.

"No news." Gale tells her empathically, shaking his head.

* * *

|Moments before the collapse of the arena|

"Crap, Katniss?! Katniss! Where are you?" Hak screams, having run after the girl once the wire got cut.

"Fuck, where did she go?" Hak curses, seeing the spool lying on the floor.

"Argh." He then hears a female scream from the forest and runs towards the source.

Once he arrives at it he sees Johanna crawling away from Brutus and Enobaria, who smile at her victoriously and approach her slowly, enjoying the moment. Hak uses the advantage that no one saw him and jumps out from his cover, beheading the two tributes and goes over to Johanna, helping her up.

"Where is Katniss?" He asks hurriedly.

"OK, two things, first this all is Haymitch's plan and secondly." Johanna says, takes a knife from Brutus's corpse and cuts him in his arm, removing the tracker.

"Do me now." She tells him, looking up with worry.

Hak quickly cuts out her tracker and they disappear into the jungle.

"Tell me where Katniss is!" He yells at her.

"She will be safe. Getting her out is the whole reason for this fucking Hunger Games." Johanna curses annoyed.

"What are you saying?" Hak questions confused.

"This was all a plan to spring your little girl out from the capitol's grasps." Johanna tells him.

The arrow then hits the dome and the ceiling collapses in a few places while they stay hidden in the trees, hoping Haymitch goes looking for them.

"Fuck those mother fuckers, Heavensbee you dirty old fucker!" Johanna curses enraged when they see the plane leave after collecting Katniss, Beady, Haymitch and Finnick.

"What does that mean?" Hak asks, looking after the plane dreadfully.

"It means we're screwed. The capitol is about to gather us and we're fucked.

"Maybe not. Take off your clothes!" Hak tells her causing her to strip with him doing the same.

The two go over to the dead bodies of Brutus and Enobaria and put their clothes next to them before going to a burning piece of debree which came down from the ceiling having landed right next to the two corpses.

"Help me!" Hak tells her and uses his glaive to dig under the piece and roll it over so it smashes the corpses.

"Now, come on!" He tells her and takes off into the jungle with her. The two watch as a plane comes and collects the pile before leaving.

"Alright, we're save from being captured form now, what now fucker?" Johanna asks him angrily.

"First", Hak says and cuts off a few branches, making makeshift clothes from them.

"Now. We'll have to survive her for a while. Until the troops are gone." Hak tells her, motioning to the group of soldiers which are searching the beach. The two survivors make their way to the bird section where Hak hunts a few birds, using them for better clothes and to eat them, frying them on a fire they contained so no smoke will be visible.

"Looks like they only attack when the electricity in this part works huh?" Hak asks her, eating away at the bird.

"Seems so." She agrees.

* * *

An hour or so later the electricity in some parts of the arena starts up again but with malfunctions. Much to the dismay of Hak and Johanna the two get trapped in the space with the birds which start to torment them. This goes on for a whole day straight until someone shut off the arena's power completely. During that time Hak kept Johanna knocked out, because she already was mad and would have killed herself with no doubt in his mind while he became only a shell of himself, having heard Katniss dying for countless hours over until it changed to both Katniss dying and her confessing her love to Gale or her saying that she never loved Hak.

He somehow was able to survive this, at first it worked by attacking the birds and eating them but at some point he was too exhausted from dehydration, only having been able to gather little bits of rain water at that point he broke, leaving him a shell of his former self.

When the electricity shuts off Hak shakes Johanna awake, who looks around herself confused at the countless dead birds.

"We can leave." Hak tells her, no emotion in his voice.

"Where should we go?" She asks him, following him to the edge of the arena where he smashes a hole in it.

"I don't care. Katniss is dead, I'm barely use to anyone anymore anyways, use me as you see fit." Hak tells her.

"What do you mean dead?" Katniss was rescued by the plane. Remember?" Johanna tells him.

"I heard her die, so she must be dead. Her ghost was mean. It told me that she didn't love me and only wants Gale." Hak says weakly.

"Hak, how long was I unconscious?" Johanna asks.

"I don't know. I stopped counting the second time the tree was hit twelve times, not too long after that, whenever that was." Hak mumbles.

"A day?" Johanna gasps.

"Where are we?" Hak asks, looking around the unfamiliar scenery.

"Uhh, fishing district?" Johanna guesses, seeing many islands separated by a huge body of water which by her guess would be the ocean.

"Where do you want to go?" Hak asks her.

"I guess we have to head to the 12th district. Wait. That over there. That's the 7th district, my district. If we can get there undetected, I can get us some supplies, clothes, food." Johanna tells him excitedly pointing at a part of land on the opposite site of the water.

"Hmm." Hak thinks to himself, looking back at the dome and bashes in the constraints on a piece of the dome.

He drags it to the water and pushes it in, standing on it.

"Will that hold?" Johanna asks, looking at it with doubt, only receiving a shrug in response.

"I don't know if I like this crazy ass you more or the usual crazy you more." Johanna tells him with a grin and jumps onto the makeshift raft.

Hak manages to steer them to the other side somehow with his glaive and the two start their journey to the 12th district from that point on. With Johanna trying to convince him that Katniss is still alive, to which he after the third day of their journey says, "You made your point already, I will believe you if I see her again."


	5. Chapter 5

|A week later - district 13|

"My name is Katniss Everdeen, I am from district 12, I was in the Hunger Games, Hak! Hak was left behind." Katniss repeats as a mantra, while rocking back and forth catatonically as she's hiding herself in a tunnel.

"Mrs. Everdeen, you can't be in here." A woman says, shining in her direction with a flashlight.

"I had a nightmare, give me 5 more minutes." She replies.

"You need to sleep, we can help you sleep." The woman tells her, making Katniss roll her eyes at her.

"Just five more minutes. Don't touch me! Get off of me!" She says, trying to get the people who went in the tunnel to collect her to let her go as she's being dragged away.

A while later Katniss wakes up in a hospital bed. Hearing nothing from outside her room she slips out and looks around, finding Finnick's room next to hers.

"Finnick!" She says angrily, seeing the man sit on the side of his bed.

"I wanted to go back for Johanna and Hak. But I couldn't move. They have Annie too I think." Finnick says.

"They're all in… They are in the capitol." Finnick says tearing up.

"I wish she were dead. I wish they were all dead and we were too." He says.

* * *

|A few days later |

"Mrs. Everdeen. I'm Lieutenant Boggs from district 13. I know you have been discharged but president coins requests that you meet with her." Boggs tells her.

"Is there any news?" Katniss asks hopefully.

"All I know is I'm supposed to get you." He tells her and takes her to the presidents' office with Katniss seeing their underground facility for the first time.

"There she is, our girl on fire. Madam President, may I present to you, the Mockingjay." Heavensbee tells her once Katniss enters the room with the two and Beady waiting in it.

"What an honor it is, you are a courageous young woman. I know how disorienting this must be. I can't imagine what it means to live through the atrocities of these games. Just know you are welcome here. I hope you find some comfort with us. If nowhere else, then here in district 13. I apologize that you don't have more time to recover but unfortunately we don't have that luxury, please take a seat." The president tells her.

"Are you aware of what happened? When you fired your arrow at that forcefield you electrified the nation. There have been riots, uprisings and strikes in several districts. We believe that if we can keep this energy going, we can unify the districts against the capitol. But if we don't, we could be waiting another 75 years for this opportunity." She says.

"What about Hak? Is he alive?" Katniss asks.

"I don't know, there is no way for me to contact my operatives inside the capitol." Heavensbee tells her.

"The capitol has always managed to suppress communications between the districts, but I know their system very well. We can break through. All we need now is the perfect message." Beady informs Katniss.

"Katniss, here is what we need to do. We need to show the people that the Mockingjay is alive and standing up to join this fight. Because we need every district to stand up against the capitol the way you did. The idea is to shoot a series of propaganda clips. The Mockingjay spreads the word so nothing can stop the fire in this rebellion." Heavensbee tells her.

"You left him there. You left Hak. In that arena, to die. Hak was the one who was supposed to live!" Katniss yells at Heavensbee, looking at him with disgust.  
"Mrs. Everdeen, this revolution is about everyone. It's about all of us. We need a voice." Coin tells her.

"Then you should have saved Hak." Katniss shoots back and leaves.

Heavensbee suggests for the president to let Katniss visit the ruins of the 12th district to remind her who the enemy is.

* * *

The next day Katniss and Gale leave with a jet to their former home.

"They sweeped everything from top to bottom so you'll be safe. Are you sure you don't want me to go with you?" Gale offers.

"Yeah, I'm sure." Katniss says leaving the plane.

Once she's alone in her former home she sees the ruins the former townsquare used to be. When she climbs over a pile of debris she looks down to the marketplace and sees countless corpses, bones as far as the eye can see lying there. Surrounded by the rubble of what used to be her hometown. She falls to her knees shaking uncontrollably, coming to the realization that everything and almost everyone she knew is gone. Once she collected herself a good while later she makes her way to the victors village and is surprised to find her house still standing.

She enters it wordlessly and stops once she hears voices coming from inside, she takes a piece of rebar lying around to use as a club and quietly enters her home, going to the source of the voices.

"Idiot, calm down! Do I need to tie you up again?" Johanna yells.

"What should we do?" Another voice asks.

"I don't know. Maybe we just leave him here. I mean I got him where he is supposed to go right?" Johanna says. Katniss recognizes the voice and peers into the room, seeing Johanna and a redheaded woman standing next to a bed where Hak lies, looking exhausted and is rolling around in pain.

"Oh My god! Hak!" Katniss yells, running past the two women who look at her with stupefied expressions and kneels down at his side, clutching his hand and feeling his forehead and him burning up.

"What the heck birdie, where did you come from?" Johanna asks surprised.

"What happened? What is wrong with him?" Katniss asks, horrified of the thought of losing the man she loves just after finding him.

"I'm guessing an infection." Johanna tells her.

"Come on, help me get him outside! Quick!" Katniss begs them and the three carry Hak outside where Katniss waves to the sky frantically to signal for the jet to pick them up.

"What are you doing?" Johanna asks annoyed.

"I was brought by district 13, we came with a plane." She replies.

A minute or so later the jet lands on an empty field next to her house.

"Hak? How the hell did he get here, and how'd you get here?" Gale asks the group of newcomers in disbelieve.

"Just help us get him aboard." Katniss says and they bring him on the plane which promptly returns them to district 13, where Hak, Johanna and Annie get medical treatment with Katniss watching over Hak to whatever extend the doctors allow.

* * *

"Katniss. There is something you should know." Johanna says, seeing Katniss wait at Hak's bedside.

"What?" She asks confused.

"He thinks you're dead. I mean I tried to convince him otherwise but… No promises." Johanna informs her.

"What? Why? How'd that happen?" Katniss asks shocked.

"When we escaped capture from the capitol we stayed hidden in the arena and those stupid fucks tried to turn it on again, causing a malfunction which trapped us in the area with those birds who make you hear your worst fears, who then started to go off not for one hour but until they shut the power off again over a day later." Johanna explains.

"Oh my God, how are you alive?" Katniss asks.

"He kept me knocked out, rightfully assuming I'd go crazy, but he got the full dose instead. He told me what he said he heard. At first it was you dying and then it was you telling him that you love some Gale? I don't know. Point is, he thinks you're dead and your ghost is haunting him. I tried to convince him overwise, but I don't know…" Johanna tells her, then walks over to Annie who is getting embraced by Finnick.

"Hak." Katniss cries weakly, slumping down on the chair next to him, not moving from her spot for the next 2 hours until Hak awakes.

"Katniss?! Don't tell me the capitol got me." Hak says breathlessly, waking up and seeing her sitting at his bedside.

"No, I'm here. I'm real. You're safe now." She tells him, grasping his hand tightly.

"I heard you die. And afterwards your ghost kept tormenting me." He says, pulling his hand away in disbelieve.

"Hak, it's me. I'm real." She says in tears, caressing his face which looks at her with disbelieve.

"Hak, you held your promise. You came back to me." She whispers in his ear while she's hugging him.

"Katniss, it can't be. But, I know Johanna said you weren't dead but I thought she only wanted me to not have a breakdown. I don't believe it." Hak says relieved with tears flowing down his eyes.

"It's alright Hak. Just rest. I'm here and no one will separate us ever again." She tells him, letting him lie down again and intertwines her hand with one of his.

"How do I know it's not a trick?" He asks her, looking over to her exhausted.

"I still need to make those pictures I promised you." She says, her face flushing as she retrieves the necklace he gave for her to hold onto.

"Look in my inside jacket pocket." Hak says and then falls asleep.

She goes over to his belongings and sees his jacket, looking through the inside she sees her the sleeve with her pin, which she lost during the crumbling of the arena and hugs the fabric and accessory close to herself with tears coming out of her eyes.

"I'm hoping those are happy tears?" Johanna asks, coming back over.

"Yes. He knows I'm not dead." Katniss tells her, smiling to herself.

"Good. Well my debt is paid. I'm free to do whatever the hell I want now." Johanna says laughing as she walks back to her hospital bed.


	6. Chapter 6

|Four days later|

Katniss enters Hak's assigned room and sees him staring at a wall, lost in thought.

"Can I enter?" She asks, already standing in the middle of the small room.

"Sure." Hak replies, turning to her surprised.

"I... I'm so glad to see you up on your feet again." Katniss says, reaching for his hand.

"Sorry for worrying you." Hak replies, jumping off the bed mounted to the wall and accepts her hand with Katniss leading them through the base, to a staircase.

"You know, I heard this leads to the top, where district 13 used to be." Katniss tells him, looking upwards with longing eyes.

"So? Let's go." Hak says, walking up the stairs.

"Halt! Who allowed you to go up?" A soldier asks, guarding the door leading outside.

"I just recovered from traveling across the country, killing more guards than you will see in your entire life, so let us through." Hak says pissed off.

"Let them through, just make sure you two come back in one piece. We have a lot to discuss." Plutarch orders the soldier, who unlocks the door and steps aside, letting Hak and Katniss through.

* * *

"Hey, what were you thinking about there? In your room." Katniss asks him once they are out of the bunker and have some time to themselves.

"Don't worry, just my brain trying to make sense of everything." Hak says, trying to reassure her but isn't convincing enough for Katniss.

"Tell me." She says, sitting down on a hill with him, looking down at the lake near the bunker.

"I still keep hearing you dying." Hak confesses.

"Even now?" She questions, wrapping his arm around herself, hugging him around his chest from the side.

"I guess not." Hak replies after closing his eyes for a second.

"That's good. That means you'll get better, don't you think?" Katniss asks, only getting a shrug in response.

"Ah, before I forget. I made something for you." Katniss tells him, showing him a facemask like he wore back in the district 12 forest, with Katniss having painted a mocking jay insignia and a lightning bolt on it.

"Thank you." Hak says with a genuine smile.

"Come on, we have some time to ourselves, let's relax." Katniss tells him, pulling Hak back so they are lying in the grass.

"What are your plans with these people Katniss?" Hak asks.

"Honestly... trying to survive. If I can do some good while I'm at it, even better." Katniss answers.

"What good?" Hak asks.

"Plutarch, he wants me... us to become the face of the rebellion." Katniss informs him.

"Dick. He always needs puppets to control huh?" Hak grunts with a frown.

"It's not all bad. We could really change the world. Especially now that I have you back by my side. Mr. Infamous Thunderbeast." Katniss says, smiling at him while brushing through his messy hair with a quiet chuckle.

"What?" He asks.

"You look like a mess, come on we should get you cleaned up." Katniss says, getting up and grabs his hand, running down the hill until they get to a small bridge at the lake.

"I've missed this so much." Katniss says.

"What? Nature?" Hak asks.

"No, being able to hold your hand and just let go of every worry in the world." She replies with a content smile while.

"I missed you." Hak replies.

"Take off your shirt." Katniss tells him, standing up, already taking hers off.

"Fine." Hak agrees.

"And your pants." She adds while she's stripping down to her undergarments.

"Only because it's you..." Hak agrees reluctantly.

Katniss gives him a smirk before jumping into the lake's waters, diving down, only to resurface, throwing her head backwards so her braided hair flows down her back.

"Don't just stand there like an idiot. Come in." She tells Hak, a mischievous smile playing on her lips when she sees his strong, muscle packed physique.

Hak follows the instructions and dives i to the water, resurfacing next to her, one hand opening up her braid with some difficulty, until her hair is flowing down the back of her shoulders.

"Hey." She says, pushing his hand away.

"What? I rarely get to see you not having your hair in a braid." Hak says shrugging.

"Cause that's what people want to see." She grumbles, straightening out her hair.

"Well I like your hair like this just as much." He tells her, inching his face closer to hers, with Katniss copying the actions until their lips meet in a gentle kiss.

"So, how were things here while I was presumed dead?" Hak asks, starting to swim around slowly.

"Well I got to see my family again, for what that's worth." Katniss says, swimming beside her boyfriend.

"Right, they came to visit while I was recovering, I think." Hak says, squinting his eyes to try and remember.

"Yes, I brought them with me one time. Prim tried to come up with something that'd speed up your recovery." Katniss answers with a chuckle.

"How're they?" Hak asks.

"Pretty good. They seem to like it here." Katniss says.

"How do you like it here?" He asks, stopping in the water and turns to face her.

"Honestly, I haven't decided yet. I mean a revolution sounds great. Until people I care about start dying." She tells him, entwining one of her hands with his.

"Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere Catnip." Hak says, pulling her in by her hand, hugging the girl to his chest, with her circling her arms around his waist.

"You won't believe how much I've longed to hear you call me that." She says sniffling, tears dripping down her cheeks, while pressing her barely clothed body close against his

The two of them stay like this for a while, keeping themselves afloat by paddling their legs in the water.

"Hak." Katniss says, when the two release each other and stares up in his eyes.

"Don't worry about me. I'm going to survive anything as long as I have you waiting for me." Hak tells her, reaching one hand to her fit ass testingly.

* * *

|lemon|

Katniss looks at him surprised, but grabs his hand, pulling him while paddling back to the bridge. Once they arrive near the wooden construct Katniss releases his hand and reaches down, crouching in the water slightly, before reaching behind her back and unclasps her bra, holding it as well as her panties in one hand and lies them down on the bridge.

Hak sees her look at him in a mixture of hope and expectancy, so he follows her actions, pulling off his shorts and lies them on top of the bridge as well.

Katniss then closes the distance between them and hugs herself to his chest once again, making the two teens shudder in anticipation when they feel the others privates touching their bodies.

"Katniss are you sure this is the right time?" Hak questions.

"Yes. I mean at least we're nowhere near the central now." She says with a playful smile.

"I guess so." Hak agrees and leans his head down, meeting her in a gentle kiss.

Katniss then reaches around his back, her fingers exploring his wide backside, most of which is scarred and Hak looks at her with a downcast expression.

"Are you really fine with me?" Hak asks.

"Hak. I love you, scars don't change that. And you've got a fair share by protecting me." She tells him, tracing her finger over the faint scar running over his shoulders, before placing butterfly kisses on the burn on his arm.

"I just don't want this to be something you'll regret later." Hak tells her, pouring some water over her hair, brushing through it mesmerized.

"Would you regret it?" She asks worried.

"No, but I've dreamt of this for many years now. I just don't want you to dive in headfirst because you think you could lose me otherwise." Hak says.

"I think when you were prepared to marry me despite thinking that I was together with Gale tells me that I don't have to worry about you leaving me." Katniss tells him with a chuckle, running her hands down his torso after resting them on against his shoulders.

"OK then." Hak says, reaching around her waist and pulling her towards himself, kissing her hungrily, when he has her trapped between his strong arms.

Katniss puts one arm around his neck to intensify their kiss while her other hand slides down the rest of the way until she finds his cock, gripping onto it carefully.

"Mhm, who'd have thought you'd make the first move this time around." Hak teases her.

"Well I was the one sitting by your bedside praying you get better soon." She counters, tracing her hand along his jawline after removing it from around her neck.

"I have to admit, it's bigger than I thought it'd be." Katniss says somewhat nervously, looking down in the clear water, seeing the general size of her lover's erection.

"You tend to have that result on me." Hak says jokingly.

"Eww. That's not how you sweet talk a lady." Katniss says.

"I didn't know I needed to sweet talk in this situation." Hak replies with a smirk.

"It can never hurt." She says with a wink, before the two break out in a quiet fit of laughter.

When it dies down their lips meet again, running against each other feverishly.

Katniss then reaches for his stiff member again, rubbing her hands over it while searching his face for a reaction.

"Ugh, that's it." Hak groans, when her hand brushes over his hot cockhead.

While Katniss is busy pleasuring him, Hak reaches one hand for her ass and the other for one of her perky breasts respectively, groping the soft mounds of flesh in delight, with Katniss gasping out when he pinches and teases her nipples.

"Looks like I did something right, huh?" He asks cockily, continuing to pay attention to her ass and boobs.

While doing that he also leans down, kissing her on her shoulders repeatedly, grazing his teeth over her sensitive skin.

"Hak." She gasps out, feeling the tension in her loins rise and tries to rub her entrance against his leg.

Feeling her desperation Hak gentry pries her hand of his already precum leaking dick and raises her out of the water, setting her down on the bridge with her feet still dangling in the water.

Hak then swims in between her legs, pushing them further out gently and buries his face in her lap, burying his tongue in her pussy.

"Ohh." She moans out, shuddering at the unusual sensation, instinctively trying to close her legs but Haks hands have a firm grip on her thighs, keeping them apart to a level where it isn't uncomfortable for the brunette.

"Oh, yess. Keep doing that." She squeals when Hak is dragging his tongue upwards, his upper lip pressing against her sensitive clit.

"How are you so good at this?" She moans, her hands clawing at his scalp.

"While I've never done this myself, I've seen plenty in my time touring as youngest champion." Hak informs her, removing his head from in between her legs before grabbing her by her ass, pulling her back in the water.

"And you never had the desire to try it yourself?" She asks intrigued.

"While I was seduced and offered a lot of times, one thing always prevented me from accepting." Hak tells her, wrapping one arm around her, just above her waist.

"What was it?" She asks.

"My love for you." Hak tells her, lifting her until she's on her back, floating on top of the water.

"That's how you sweet talk." She grins genuinely happy.

"Try to stay afloat OK?" Hak says, sliding one hand along her left leg, until he stops just at the outer lips of her pussy, rubbing two fingers over it teasingly, making Katniss's blush deepen while she's closing her eyes in pleasure when he pushes the two appendages into her.

"If it's uncomfortable, just tell me." He says, hearing Katniss's breath hitch.

"Hah, hah, hah, that's not the issue, I just don't think I have enough focus to stay afloat." Katniss tells him, gabbing onto his free arm desperately, trying to stay afloat.

"Right... sorry, let's move to the shore." Hak says, giving her a quick kiss before swimming towards the shore with her, stepping out of the water when they reach it.

"My, looks like you have more than one beastly side." Katniss says, staring at his hard cock.

"I just hope you aren't scared of this one." Hak chuckles nervously.

"No. Quite the opposite in fact." Katniss says, dropping to her knees and runs her tongue up his hard, pulsating shaft, with Hak brushing over her hair, holding it behind her, so it won't hinder her.

Getting the desired result out of her lover when he moans, Katniss reaches for the base of his cock, her tongue focusing on licking around the head.

"Katniss." Hak moans when the brunette leans forward and swallows his cock, leaving only a small part at the bottom remaining.

She bobs her head up and down a few times before releasing the hot appendage from her mouth.

"Is that good?" She asks, giving him a seductive look.

Hak's only response is to nod his head, breathing heavily, while Katniss is running a fingertip over his cock teasingly.

Hak responds by grabbing her arms and making her stand, before he wraps his arms around her waist, lifting her up upside down until her head is in level with his pulsating member.

"My, how eager you can be." She says with a chuckle.

"With you in front of me, how could I not be?" He replies, his grip strong around her waist.

"Well, let me reward you." She says, grabbing his cock with one hand, pumping him while her other hand grabs onto his shin to stabilize her.

Once she feels like she has gotten used to the unique position she engulfs his cock in her mouth again. While Katniss is paying attention to his member, Hak buries his head in her nether region, his tongue hungrily seeking her wet pussy.

"Hak!" She moans, releasing his cock for a moment, her head bright red, from the blood rushing to it.

Her lover however doesn't respond and only gets more vigorous in his action.

Katniss also gets back to trying to swallow his dick.

This continues for 2 minutes or so, before Katniss pats his shin saying, "can we switch positions. My head feels like it could burst from all the blood."

Hak turns her around so she's not upside down anymore, but keeps her pressed against himself, a hungry look in his eyes when he smashes his lips on top of hers, quickly seeking entrance with his tongue to deepen their connection. Something Katniss responds to eagerly, opening her mouth with his tongue entering and starting to wrestle with hers.

"Hak, don't you think we're ready for the real thing?" Katniss asks him knowingly while pushing him back slightly until she has her feet touching the ground again and grabs his hand, leading him to a grassy area, shadowed by a large tree.

Once there she lies down, stretching her arms to him, as if to welcome him.

Hak leans down, hovering over his naked girlfriend by his forearms.

"Are you sure?" He asks, his breath hot against the side of her neck, with him staying there teasingly.

"Yes." She replies without hesitation, her arms wrapping around his shoulders.

"Good." She says, leaning further down, gently biting against her skin, careful not to hurt her.

He then licks up the side of her neck until his tongue flicks against her earlobe, with Katniss almost trembling in anticipation.

Hak then inserts his cock in her awaiting pussy, only pushing in slowly.

"Can I go on?" He huskily asks with Katniss almost clawing against his shoulders.

"Yeah, go on." She says, her hand caressing the side of his face.

Hak then inserts himself into her until he's fully sheathed inside her, with Katniss having a scrunched up expression on her face, the pain from losing her virginity hitting her.

"Take your time, I'm in no hurry to let you ever go." Hak says, one hand seeking out hers, their fingers entwining.

"Hah, OK. We can carry on." Katniss says after a few minutes, during which Hak ran his hand all over her body, before staying at her soft breasts, holding up his body with the other hand.

At her exclamation to continue Hak pinches her nipple and gives her a gentle kiss while he's starting to move his cock.

"Hah. I'm so glad." Katniss says crying.

"What's wrong?" He asks concerned.

"I'm just so relieved you're back to the Hak i love so dearly." She sighs happily, one hand running over his chest.

"Don't worry. I'm yours for as long as you want, no matter what anyone else says." Hak promises, brushing through her hair and gives her another kiss.

"Good. And if you'll always be this good, I may want you a lot, do you think you can handle that?" She asks teasingly with a grin on her face.

"Oh, I can handle that. You should rather make sure you don't overestimate yourself." Hak replies and sits up with her in is lap and starts to help her bounce up and down on his cock with one hand, while his head leans down, pleasuring one of her hard nipples and his other hand slides down her body until it reaches their connection and plays with her clit, making her gasp out, her eyes rolling in the back of her head while an orgasm hits her, her stomach muscles and pussy clamping down rapidly.

"Hah, hah, give me a moment." She says breathing heavily.

"Nope." Is his response and Hak bounces her up and down on his dick, pushing up into her from below as well.

"Hak." She cries in a long-stretched moan.

"Who can't handle whom now?" Hak asks mirthfully, slowing down to a few occasional thrusts while Katniss collects herself.

"I should be mad for that, but honestly I just can't." Katniss tells him, brushing her wet hair backwards and smiling at him happily.

"Well, next time you're in a vulnerable situation don't challenge me." Hak tells her, groping her ass with his hands while leaning forward and kissing her along her jawline.

"Challenge you? Like if I said that this time I will make you cum before me?"

Katniss asks smirking while gyrating her hips, her boobs passing by his face multiple times with Hak eyeing them.

"Oh, you're on." Hak says and lifts her off his hips, setting her down on her feet before he lifts her in the air by her legs and her back, holding her up, surprising Katniss with his strength.

"Glaives aren't the only things I can carry." Hak says victoriously, slowly sliding his throbbing member inside her.

"Hah." She gasps out, running one hand down to her stomach, with the other wrapping around his neck.

"Looks like you need to be taught, not to underestimate me. First thinking I died, now this." Hak grunts, hammering away into her wet pussy.

"Hak, hah. I promise I won't underestimate your sexual prowess ever again." Katniss huffs blissfully.

"Ugh, Katniss. I'm gonna cum." Hak growls, hammering into her a handful more times before pulling out of her and blowing his load.

"Hah, looks like you won that challenge afterall." Hak groans tiredly, setting her down in front of him.

"So what's my prize?" she asks him, leaning against him, seductively pushing her breasts into his chest.

Hak sees the wide grin on her face and pulls her over to a tree, lightly shoving her against it and kneels down in front of her, grabbing her right leg and lifts it over his shoulder, running his hand along her inner thigh continuously as he starts eating her out yet again, his other hand rubbing circles over her belly before it seeks out her clit, making Katniss's breath hitch.

"I love you so much Katniss." Hak says, pausing his actions and looking her deep in her eyes with his hand continuing to rub her clit.

"I -I -I love you too." She sighs in pleasure, having to start over, because of Hak pleasuring her.

"Hak, I'll..." she breaths, gripping his hair and shoving his head back to her entrance, clawing into his wild hair when she comes, spasming against the tree, her juices flowing to his greed tongue which he buried inside her pussy.

"That was amazing." Katniss says minutes later, the two of them floating back in the water her arms wrapped around his neck.

"Yeah. It was great." Hak agrees, kissing her with his hands wrapping around her waist, grabbing her round ass.

"Let's not start something we can't finish." Katniss advises, her hand teasingly brushing over his semi erect dick.

"Yeah, you're probably right." Hak accepts, kissing her temple while removing his hands from her ass.


End file.
